Welcome to our plot!

I'm Hazel, and in Nov 2006 my friend Jane and I took on a half plot at Hill Allotments, Sutton Coldfield - we want the satisfaction of growing and eating our own fruit and veg, and to improve our diet (and fitness!).

This is the story of what happened next...........

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

"Basins and demijohns...

...which I suspect must have been the cause of the problem!", wrote big sister Helen in an email to me yesterday - which is, in fact, exactly right.

On Sunday when I got back from Ryton, the bright light in the attic room meant it was a good afternoon for wine racking - i.e. I could can see what the devil I was doing.

There are about four batches ready for racking - in fact some ready for bottling, which I haven't done yet as I still haven't put up the shelf in the garage to put the big wine rack on. Jobs, jobs!

All started well enough with a new & simple system for racking - syphoning the cleared wine straight into a fresh sterilised demijohn. No mess, no fuss, then the old demijohn can have the sediment washed out & be used to syphon the next wine in the queue into. Brilliant!

I started with the redcurrant & apple wine (quick check on SG & taste (sharp, fruity)), then onto the apple mk I (quick check on the SG & taste (sweet, lovely)) & then disaster struck.

Whilst rinsing out the demijohn in the bathroom, giving it a really good shake & a final emptying of water into the basin, the demijohn slipped out my hand straight in the basin with a HUGE crash, thus rendering both demijohn & basin less than fit-for-purpose.

This did stop play, somewhat, whilst I cleared up a zillion shards of shattered glass, & patched up the basin with duck-tape.

The system is basically sound, though - it just means rinsing demijohns out in the stainless steel sink in the kitchen in future, thus reducing the number of breakable components by one.

3 comments:

  1. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

    My Ma once dropped a bottle of bleach in the loo - with, as they say, hilarious consequences!

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  2. Oh poo, expensive accident. have you considered replacing the attic room sink with a stainless steel one so that you can continue to work where you want in good light but without the risk of another breakage?

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  3. We had one or two similar moments when growing up, Flum - the day that mum broke the kitchen window giving it an over-enthusiastic rap to tell us off in the garden springs to mind...

    I don't want to disturb the suite in the bathroom, Bilbo, (where this drama took place) but funnily enough there is water piped up to the attic room already - there used to be a small basin in there, but it was neither use nor ornament, so it got taken out when the room was decorated some years ago.

    The extra exercise whipping up and down two flights of stairs not one will do me good!

    ReplyDelete

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