Homemade wine

If you are a regular reader of my blog, thank you, you'll have seen I've started making wine again. If you missed my previous posts here's the links: 

Homemade Apple Wine 

Homemade Plum Wine

After months of settling in the demijohns I decided yesterday to bottle my wine. I have already filled bottles from one the apple demijohn which have been very much enjoyed by the apple donator!

I was a little concerned about the plum wine as there was a yeasty under taste so I added some finings... this is not something I usually do as my wine is just fruit and sugar. I added finings to one demijohn of plum and one of apple. 

I don't think it has done anything to the apple but the plum does seem smoother although the demijohn of plum without the finings is less yeasty after having longer in the demijohn. 

It's very satisfying making wine - turning these 

into beautiful clear and delicious wine 

Now I'm making Rhubarb wine, kindly donated by the apple grower hopefully this will be as successful. I haven't made apple or plum wine before but in the late 1980s when we first moved into our house and before our children were born I made some Rhubarb wine which was superb. 

It's settling well and no longer bubbling so today I will rack (syphon) it into clean demijohns and leave it to settle more. I will not be adding finings to this wine.

I'd really like to try making pea pod wine, something my Grandad made and it's his book I use. It's very old and falling apart but the recipes are great, I'd also like to try beetroot wine but I need a dark glass demijohn for that as the light can change it's colour. I might also try making dandelion wine again but it needs a lot of flowers and it's a bit smelly to make as they need boiling. 

If any of my local friends have spare fruit of veg I'd love to try making them into wine or donate them to Pressed for Good, a local social enterprise using unwanted fruit and vegetables to make cider with profits going to good causes.

One thing I need to do is get some good labels. I have searched online but as yet haven't found quite what I'm looking for. I might buy some larger labels and have a go at designing my own, printing might be the tricky bit getting the sizes right ... there's a challenge! 

Canalside Holiday

We recently enjoyed a week in Wales near Abergavenny in the lovely Canalside Cottage, one of two converted pig stys. Our daughter and son-in-law live in the area so as well as a holiday we spent time with them and our beautiful granddaughter.

The cottage was in a hamlet of about six houses and as its name suggests was right by the canal. With views across the canal to the mountains it was so peaceful, we loved sitting out late evening watching the bats (who flew very close) and amazingly an owl.

The cottage was lovely, stone flag flooring throughout with an open plan kitchen lounge diner, a four poster double, a twin room and a huge bathroom with rain forest style shower. It was very nice to live without stairs for a week.

We had a couple of country walks although the second half of our week was a bit too warm for walking. I was nervous walking the country lanes and much preferred walking the canal towpath even if it was further as canals are not straight.

As holiday are food and drink is always a highlight. Our first walk took us to The Horseshoe Inn, a bit uphill but sitting outside the views were lovely; a view that changed over our week.

We recently enjoyed watching Death Valley which is filmed in South Wales so one of our days out included a coffee at Brod in Penarth, one of the tv series' filming locations. The coffee was superb, so was my Marmite & cheese danish, Hubby enjoyed his custard one too.

As I mentioned the view over the mountain changed over the week as a huge wildfire started on Sunday near Cwmavon and Blaenavon which lies just the other side. It's times like this that social media shows its positive side with updates posted from South Wales Fire and also the local community posting about how to help and support the Firefighters and other emergency services with food and drink donations as they worked day and night out on the mountain.

The smoke varied depending on the wind direction and time of day as the evenings brought more smoke with the drop in temperature. The sunset was over the mountain which made the sky red, at first we worried it was the flames but thankfully not.

As far as I know the fire is now under control but has destroyed over 200 hectares, thankfully no-one was hurt.

We had a super week in the Welsh countryside and spending time with our now 3 generation family. 

Cosford Air Museum

A few weeks ago we took a drive to the Royal Airforce Cosford Air Museum. Whilst I'm not keen on flying (taking off and landing) we do fly a few times a year and I'm always using Flightradar24 to see what's flying overhead.

I'm quite good at recognising the sound of different planes especially as a Hercules or an Antonov go by.

Cosford is huge, there's two large hangers dedicated to WWI and WWII planes. I cannot believe they flew in them, some are just wood and paper. There is also a enormous new purpose built hanger with planes and fighter jets, including a Vulcan. 

It's free to visit, just parking to pay with a discount if you pay online in advance. It's a great place to visit with good facilities and coffee shop.

Hercules

VC10

Nimrod

Catalina Flying Boat

Bristol

Gloster Gladiator 

Spitfire

Tiger Moth

Mosquito 

Avro Lincoln

F111

Lightning 

Vulcan and Hawker Hunter

Huge thank you to my Hubby for a great day out and being my aeroplane encyclopedia.

Sardinia & Corsica 2026

As part of the cruise to celebrate Marella's 30th Birthday we visited two Mediterranean island that are just 7 miles, separated by th Strait of Bonifacio. Sardinia and Corsica may be close to each other but they are owned by different countries. 

Corsica is French, sold centuries ago to cover Italian debt whilst Sardinia remains part of Italy.

Our first visit was to Sardinia; we have visited the island before on our Olives and Old Towns cruise in 2024. Our port of call then was Cagliari, the capital, and we had a trip to a vineyard, olive oil factory and ancient church.

This trip our port was Olbia, the busy gateway to the island with ferry links to Italy and Corsica.

We decided not to take an excursion but to explore the town. It was a lovely walk from the ship along the waterside with an abundance of fish at the water's edge.

A beautiful Italian town with narrow streets and painted buildings. It was lovely sitting outside enjoying a coffee under blue skies.

Sardinia was lovely, we enjoyed this short visit as well as our previous longer experience however Corsica was our favourite stop of this cruise. In fact most of our fellow cruisers said Corsica was their favourite place.

We did arrive on the actual birthday celebration day so lots was happening and it was made extra special with an amazing sail away. 

Corsica is the birthplace of Napoleon Bonapart and the island is very proud of their historic son.

We docked in Ajaccio, the capital of the island, and it certainly felt French as soon as we began exploring. The city had busy shopping streets a well as small alleyways. There were plenty of cafes with outside tables, a French espresso was a must, as was a Pastis at a little bar on our way back to the ship.

We were docked alongside an amazing tall ship, it looked beautiful under bright blue skies.

Two superb islands, a cruise is certainly a great way to see the world. Corsica is on our revisit list, maybe a long road trip holiday.

Pompeii

On our recent cruise one of the ports we visited was Naples. We have both always wanted to visit Pompeii so booked the excursion with the cruise company. 

It's a huge place, far bigger than I expected and I definitely needed my walking stick as the paths and roads are made of huge stone blocks that are uneven and quite high to step up to. 

The roads were more like waterways with all the inhabitants waste running down. The pavements were built high on both sides with stepping stones to cross. The gaps in the stepping stones were for the cart wheels to get through and the whole city had one way streets, so ingenious. 

I still don't fully understand everything, there's so much to learn about Pompeii, the devastating event, their life before and how it was discovered. 

Here's a quick overview from Google:

Pompeii is a famously preserved ancient Roman city near Naples, Italy, that was catastrophically buried under 4 to 6 meters of volcanic ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Its quick burial left the city frozen in time, providing an unparalleled archaeological record of daily Roman life.

We took so many photos, I'll add a caption to some but my blog would be huge if I wrote about everything.

 

There were quite a few houses with wall paintings

Their building style and construction was amazing

This was a hot food shop as they didn't have fires in their homes
The food was served from the huge pots ... ancient McDonald's 

Plaster casts were taken of some of the people found,
quite moving to see, an unimaginable disaster

This is the famous brothel with paintings showing what was on
offer as many couldn't read and Pompeii had many visiting foreign sailors

It was fascinating, so much to see and understand in our short visit. It's certainly a place we'd like to revisit and have longer to explore. 

Until our visit I hadn't realised that the 'two' mountains that we see today were actually both Vesuvius. The middle gap is the vast amount of the volcano that erupted into the air and covered Pompeii and Herculaneum. 

All the yellow area erupted and covered everywhere 

We had a superb time visiting this amazing place that thanks to such a devastating event at the time has actually preserved Roman history. Our organised excursion was a good way to visit for the first time but Pompeii is certainly a place I'd like to visit again.