This weekend I have A Plan. It involves large glass bottles, lengths of tubing, indecent quantities of sugar, and some hot water. It also involves tramping through a few fields with Quercus, armed with a long stick of some sort for hoooking purposes. (At times like these, I’m glad I’m beginning to get the hang of carrying the witchling on my back; we recently acquired a mei tai carrier in brown velvet, and it’s quite good for popping on and off, though I hate to say it, but I think perhaps, despite the time and faff of on and off, I am perhaps more comfortable in the woven wrap. Is that a woman i.e. ‘I have breasts; please do not attempt to flatten them with fabric’ thing, I wonder?)

Where was I? Ah yes. Alchohol.

We’ve realised lately that it’s been a bloody long time since we last made some wine. Last year, I got some sloes on the go when I was first pregnant, but then nothing else really made it after that; I s’pose knowing that one isn’t going to take part in the fruits of one’s labours (an oddly appropriate saying, bearing in mind my pregnancy) meant that I sort of forgot about it. And now, after a year of construction and general builderyness, our supplies are quite depleted – somehow, three demijohns of plum, three of sloe, one of ginger, one of lemonbalm, one of elderflower, one of crabapple and one of coffee wine have disappeared, leaving us scratching about with a few dodgy-looking bottles of vintage who-knows and some cobweb-covered I-wouldn’t-if-I-were-you.

So this weekend it’s time to rectify this situation. The field behind Earthenhouse is covered with elderflower, and there are more trees to be found in the lanes hereabouts, so that’s the first port of call. Then I’m considering a bottle of the ridicoulsly idyllic-sounding honeysuckle champagne, as the hedges are full of flowers at the moment, and – if I can avoid the poisonous foliage and berries – imagine what a thing to make.

Sadly, the first bit is always the worst. No, not the picking. No, not the taking of the flowers from the stems. Worse yet: the cleaning-out of last year’s demijohns. I’m not a complete slattern, so I do normally give them a perfunctory sluice when we empty the last few drops down our necks, but still somehow the intervening time seems to bring forth a plethora of mouldy whatsits and disgusting so-and-sos, and I’m sure that the strangely-shaped demijohn brush will be pressed into service once more, despite my attempts to avoid it… Oh joy. But I’m sure it’ll be worth it, right? When, in a few months’ time, I’m sitting and swigging the odd half-glass down?