Whoosh, another week has flown by!
Juggling all the exciting things happening in the world of Day Camps with all the other parts of life can be quite challenging!
The Program Manual has taken top priority since Arnee, our long-suffering typist/editor, is off in 2 weeks to visit family in the UK so the push is REALLY on to get the Manual completed before she leaves. I think it will be impossible to have it proofread and printed but if she can send us a version of the whole document a few of us will do a comprehensive final proofing while she is away.
This was also the week when the CTM Lent/Easter Newsletter content was due, as “Networks” is supposed to be published March 15th. Needless to say, chasing down all the people who have been supposed to submit copy was no easy task! But I think the content is almost wrestled into submission, barring the tracking down of a few photos!!!!
Away from the world of CTM, this has been the “Changing the Decorations” week. Of course we also had a blizzard so it seemed pretty crazy to be filling the house with flowers and baskets of Pysanky as the wind roared and ice pellets beat against the windows, ah winter in Quebec!! But, despite having to take breaks from the indoor decorating to shovel mounds of icy snow, it has still been lovely to see spring come to life inside. Now the house looks fresh and shiny so it has been back to work on various sewing and knitting projects and the Pysanky as Easter is not that far away.
Several friends have given me their used wooden orange crates, which, when painted, make ideal Easter gift baskets so hopefully there will be time in the coming week to make a start on those and since there is another dozen eggs to complete, I’m hoping to devote part of this afternoon to working on them. Today I’m baking my second batch of Hot Cross Buns, this means that my various friends and I have eaten 4 dozen since Ash Wednesday! Well I do REALLY like Hot Cross Buns and only make them during Lent 😊.
This evening Steven Craig is coming for dinner so I’m also baking Rhubarb Dumplings for dessert. My stash of last year’s rhubarb is almost used up and there sure won’t be any to pick around here for a while, but again, rhubarb is such a harbinger of spring, it will be great to eat some in celebration
of the garden to come. Last week’s fruit box included lots of citrus fruits so I’m off, now to prep some of them for a batch of my Mum’s three-fruit marmalade. It is an unbelievable 16 years since her death, on March 2nd 2000, and I vividly remember, a couple of weeks before that date when a friend of hers from church came over to help me make my first ever marmalade because I couldn’t understand the recipe and Mum was too ill to help. I read somewhere that the sense of smell is the most evocative of memories, I don’t need to smell boiling oranges to remember my Mum, but I guess it is fitting, this weekend, to be doing extra stuff in the kitchen, which was her favourite place!
of the garden to come. Last week’s fruit box included lots of citrus fruits so I’m off, now to prep some of them for a batch of my Mum’s three-fruit marmalade. It is an unbelievable 16 years since her death, on March 2nd 2000, and I vividly remember, a couple of weeks before that date when a friend of hers from church came over to help me make my first ever marmalade because I couldn’t understand the recipe and Mum was too ill to help. I read somewhere that the sense of smell is the most evocative of memories, I don’t need to smell boiling oranges to remember my Mum, but I guess it is fitting, this weekend, to be doing extra stuff in the kitchen, which was her favourite place!
Here is the recipe, in case you too are loaded down with citrus fruit…
Three Fruit Marmalade
- 3 grapefruits
- 3 oranges
- 3 lemons
- sugar
- pinch of salt
Wash the fruits, quarter them, remove all the pips,then slice fruit thinly (I do this part in the food processor because it helps in saving all the juices and makes less mess!) Place the pips in a square of cheesecloth and tie firmly. Measure the quantity of prepared fruit and place in a large pot with 3 times the amount of water and the bag of pips. Cover and simmer for two hours, remove from the heat and allow to stand overnight. Measure again and add an equal amount of sugar and the salt. Place over low heat and cook, stirring, until all the sugar is dissolved, then boil rapidly until set. Remove from the heat and let stand for 1 hour, stirring several times to distribute the peel. Ladle into sterilized jars and seal.