American Apple Flavoured Whisky Or Even Liqueur?

 

A Christmas 🎄 present 🎁. 

Someone bought us all a bottle of Jack Daniel's Apple 🍎 for Christmas.

It came in it's tin.  My first thought was how much did the tin cost?  I am sure will find an home in a shed or the polytunnel for nuts and bolts or staples or even vegetable seeds?

I tried to make hot toddies with the spirit and placed a teas spoon of sugar, a good measure of the drink and some hot water 💧  in the whisky glasses with the handles.

The resulting taste was far too sweet!  

It's OK 👍 on it's own.  But don't add sugar.

Since reading the writing on the tin box it says it's a liqueur.

I went over to Wikipedia and found out what is a liqueur.  It's a spirit with fruit additives.

Anyone else sampled any hot toddies or liqueurs lately?  What's your favourite? 

What about making some mulled wine or cider? Hey we could have a cider night.  I must find some cheap cider?

Did I tell you when we went to Glastonbury music festival in 1989 and it was roasting hot and we bought gallons of Scrumpy for five pounds a gallon.   In one of those plastic containers they sell paraffin in and with big chunks of wood floating in the cider?

 I became very sick and vomited into our campfire.  So I didn't  make a mess.  Ever the consciencous type even when severely inebriated. 

Apparently I was christened "the barking vomiting dog of the north" by some young ladies.  One of the West countries girls kissed me and said: "Dave's alright".  He's lovely". I was going to buy her a badger pasty but I was too ill.😊  A true story.

Charles Dickens In The Style Of Morrissey.

 I found this brilliant video on YouTube the other day.  It takes me back to The Smith's on Top Of The Pops and how Morrissey would dance with flowers in the air.  Enjoy.

Charles Dickens died of a stroke when he was only 58.  He walked between twelve and twenty miles a day.  

No doubt walking in seedy London neighbourhoods and meeting rally life characters like Fagin for his books.  Some of which are still in print.  A Christmas Carol comes to mind.

I took a few photos of one of his houses when I visited Broadstairs in Kent a few years ago if you  remember kind readers?  Just put Broadstairs in my blog search.

He was a social reformer .  One thing I love about Ireland is that there is no social class.  

Can you think of any modern day social reformer writer who champions ordinary folk?

Where are the George Orwells of today?  

Knee Height Vegetable Gardening.

 "The rain always follows the frost."  We had a very heavy frost on Friday.  The hoses were frozen along with a pile of sand.

I woke up Saturday morning to soft rain and the ice and frost had thawed and gone.

I'm itching to get going in the veg plot.  But things are too cold and wet to garden.

We are really pleased with the plastic repurposed oil tanks we made into raised beds.  Here's a recent couple of 📸 photos for your perusal:

The leeks are loving it and I will weed the raised beds when I harvest them.  Raised beds make it easier on the back and the soil is at knee height or higher.

Old plastic baths drilled with drainage holes and topped up with well rotted soil, fym and homemade compost.

If your garden suffers from poor drainage.  Raised beds are the way to go. I was mucking out today and it was pouring down again.  This will be the third very wet winter on the trot.  

I often write on here you do not need a veg garden or allotment to grow your own vegetables.  All you need are repurposed containers to grow them in.  Don't be rushing to the garden centre.  Go to your recycling centre and see if they have got anything preferably for free that you can recycle.

See you tomorrow.

More Dorset 2018 Pics For Your Perusal.

Tank museum. I think this visited somewhere sandy like Southport or maybe the Gulf?  

This could be a Lilliput Lane church with its honey stone masonry.

I spotted this walled kitchen garden.  I was in my element.  It must have had lots of fym spread from the horses stables and the cow shed because nettles grew everywhere.  

There is an old country saying: " Where nettles grow anything will grow.  I would have loved to see the productive vegetables garden in all it's glory.  I have walked around the one at Heligan in Cornwall.  I have read that they built the walls so people from the big house could not see or smell the big piles of fym.  I don't  think is so because the walls protect crops and create a unique microclimate and vegetables are ready to harvest so much quicker.

Winterbourne Came where the Dorset poet, vicar and polymath  William Barnes lived and is buried.

One of Thomas Hardy's residences.  I think we visited 3 of them?  This one is in Wimborne.  We visited Wimborne Folk Festival whilst visiting there.

Ice cream for dogs.

Durdle Door.  Stunningly beautiful and featured in quite a few films or filums like they say in Ireland.  Far From The Madding Crowd comes to mind.

I think Dorset is probably the prettiest county in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.   

A Few Dorset Photos From 2018.

It's  a bit of a repost today.  Not a lot happening in my world like the garden and smallholding  at present.  So I thought I would re blog about Dorset.  One of my favourite  places to visit in England.  None of that UK stuff!

If you want to see these photos and more.  Please put Dorset in my blog search.

I took this photograph on my first proper visit to Thomas Hardy country/ Wessex or even Dorset.  It made me smile.  

I had passed through Dorset before briefly.  This time we visited Thomas Hardy's birth place and houses and even Durdle Door where a scene from Far From The Madding Crowd was filmed.

Tess Cottage.  The house owners told us that Thomas Hardy arrived  in a pony and trap and exclaimed: "This shall be Tess cottage where Tess lives". It is a beautiful and quintessentially Engish chocolate box cottage.  It could easily be the photograph on a jigsaw puzzle.  I talked to the owners about their cottage garden and how I was a keen organic gardener.  I offered suggestions to alleviate the heavy clay.  We had a pleasant chat.

The Pure Drop Inn. Tess's father's local.  We had a pint in there.  The food was very expensive so we didn't purchase any.

We walked miles and visited Shaftesbury where part of Jude The Oscure is set and walked up and down Gold Hill where they filmed the famous Hovis adverts.

I think I could quite possibly move to Dorset.  I would need a garden or an allotment and public transport and be in walking distance of a village with a shop and a pub, preferably one that sells real ales and with Wetherspoons prices.

Although I would  love a little house in the Algarve with an outside space, sun terrace or a veg plot?

I'm 61 now and time is running out.  

Do you have itchy feet to move somewhere else?  If only for the Winter.  I know I do.

 

"Easter" By Marillion On New Years Day.

'New Years Day' by U2 began playing on my mental jukebox this very morn.  Regular readers will know I often reminisce about me seeing Bono and the lads at Greenbelt Christian Music Festival in  Odell in Bedfordshire in 1981.  

I was the ripe old age of 18 and U2 played a rather poor set.  I thought little of this up and coming band from the country of my dad and his ancestors.  Two years later they released 'New Years Day' and the rest like they say is history.  Shows how much a lad from south east Lancashire knew about future rock stars.

Fast forward a few years and a Prog band from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire came on to the scene.  They named themselves after a JRR Tolkien book: The Silmarillion and abridged their name to Marillion.  I was a big fan and their lead singer: 'Fish'was my hero.

A lot of rock journalists in NME and Sounds compared them to early Genesis.  I think The Amazing Alex Harvey Band myself.  Especially with " Fish" being Scottish. I saw The Zal Cleminson Band in 2019 at a music festival  and this confirmed my thoughts.

Remember when we went to the fringe festival at the Brasenose Arms in Cropredy village to see that Norwegian cover band: ' Misplaced Neighbourhood'  last August and the power went out and a few lads got on the stage and gesticulated and led us into a microphone less performance of " Script?" It was very funny and very memorable.

Yes I was a devotee to the great Marillion.  They made four albums with 'Fish'.  Then he left in 1988 and Steve Hogarth joined in 1989.  

I didn't  listen to the 'new' Marillion much until my childhood friend and me went to ' The Night Of The Prog' festival in Loreley in 2017.  We had been hoping to see 'Kansas' again but they pulled out on terrorist security advice.  So Marillion replaced them.  It was a good performance in fairness.

In the last eight years I have began to rediscover ' Marillion'.  I am planning on seeing them again at a new music festival  in Cornwall in September. 

I saw 'Fish' again in 2019 at A New Day Festival near Faversham in Kent and we saw Steve Hogarth play a set with The Trevor Horn Band at Cropredy in 2022.  He played the keyboard and sang a remarkable version of: ' Life On Mars' by Ziggy Stardust aka David  Bowie.

I have gone "all around the houses" writing this post. That's another north country saying for your post today: Jabblog. 

When Steve Hogarth joined Marillion in 1989.  He brought the following song with him. It's  a little out of the religious season but it's a peace song.  Steve had lodged with a student from the ' Falls' Road in Belfast.  His friend told him that his neighbours were just ordinary people who wanted no troubles and just peace.

I wish you all peace and a great 2025.

Enjoy the video:

Looking Back At My 2024.

This be blog 320.  I have never wrote so many posts in a year.  I must get back to writing my gardening book in 2025.

Any road.  Here's some photos of 2024.  Nothing is in chronicle order. 46ish photos for your perusal dear blog readers.

June 18th.  Black eye our piglet was a champion at Cork show. Our other piglets won rosettes too.

I still enjoy my saunters when the weather allows.

 

We have seven months of lit fires and dark nights to endure.  Oh to have street lights like the villages and towns and cities.  I could go far a walk.

We sampled West Cork Buffalo cheese.

I took lots of cuttings.  Like this Hydrangea.  

I repurposed lots of plastic bottles and made plant cuttings cloches.

Lots of piglets were born.

Our tables runneth over with tomatoes 🍅 that I grew from seed.

We made lots of soup.

Wetherspoons beer prices when I went to Blighty in August.

J knitted herself a lovely jumper from a massive ball of wool she bought for 3 Euros at a carboot sale.

Diesel was pleased to see me on my return.

Inspector Morse visited this Oxford pub and Thomas Hardy wrote Jude The Obscure here.

The Inklings "Bird and Baby".  Where the Inklings met.

The 'Martyr's Memorial.  Near here Thomas Cranmer and others were burned for their Protestant beliefs.

Sir Roger Bannister.

JRR Tolkein. 

CS Lewis.  He died on the same day Aldous Huxley died and JFK was assassinated and less than two weeks before I was born.

I finally visited The Kilns and the nature reserve.  I recognised scenes from Shadowlands.  I have seen it 24 times.  The Kilns was once a place for making bricks.  

Bronte and me walking a repurposed railway line in Limerick here in Ireland.  This is Barnagh tunnel.  The light automatic comes on when you venture inside.  This startled  Bronte.  It had a very eerie feeling and we looked out for ghosts.

A new pony foal.

Canal boat Banbury.

Pork pie.  Something  you don't see a lot over here.

A real pint of ale.

Rick Wakeman.

Rosie and Jim Cropredy  village.

 

Big Big Train.

Lawrence of Arabia grave.

My not very well pitched tent.

Ancient tomb in Christchurch.  Waiting since 1461 for Judgment Day.

Chris Isaak Bournemouth.  They wanted forty pounds for a tour t shirt.  A man and woman bought two.  I never bothered to purchase one.

Corfe Castle.  'Bedknobs and Broomsticks ' was filmed there.

A tourist sign in Wool.

Ancient Dorset sign.  I featured this when I last visited in 2017.

Train station cat brass plate memorials at.

Homeless in Canterbury.  I saw lots of homeless  on my Blighty visit.  Hopefully Labour will build some council houses for them.

Tangerine Dream. Electronic Prog Rock at its finest.

Curved Air.

A New Day Festival banner.  My third visit.  Great bands, two stages and set in a beautiful Kent countryside.

My repurposed second hand oil tanks now raised beds.  They cost nothing just hard labour and lots of well rotted fym. 

One of our leeks sunbathing.

These are Purple Rain 🥔.   We grew lots of Homeguard too.

The author of this blog with one of his swedes.  "It's a beauty!"

Newcy Brown in England.

Quite an eventful year.  Especially in summer. 

Happy New Year and much success with your veg and garden plants growing in 2025.