IT IS NOT MARMALADE TIME

but it is - explain later.

It is tulip time (and forget-me-not time and wallflower time) and, hooray, asparagus time. First steamed asparagus with a little melted butter due this weekend.

Clumps of tulips always give a good display as here by the sundial. It is a pity they tend to diminish over the years - some are worse than others (and I am not a lifter and storer) and one of the worst is Angelique - great first year but then phut!

I experimented this year by underplanting winter pansies in pots with tulips and this has been a success and will be repeated next autumn. The pansies have flowered most of the winter and now we have both.

In the garden the wood mice are busy under the feeders, Senor Blackbird still chases his Senorita (Senora?) around and around, rabbits dine on what they can get - two big fat ones this morning - and other inhabitants thrive - squirrels, mallard, goldfinches - and a heron and myself scared the ******* out of each other by the willow tunnel.

So to marmalade - out of the freezer came the forgotten Seville oranges, out of the shed came the jam jars.

Here is Sadie Howarth's Marmalade Recipe.

(Even a man can make this!) (It helps to have a Kenwood - I bought ours in 1973 in Kendal)

9 Seville Oranges

8 lbs sugar

2 lemons

1 sweet orange

9 pints of water (this can be reduced to 6 pints if the fruit are softened in the oven - Aga simmering oven)

Halve fruit and squeeze out juice. Save pips and put in muslin bag. Tie with string.

Put peel, with pith, through mincer.

Add water to peel etc, tie bag to handle and leave for 24 hours.

Boil up without sugar and simmer till peel transparent and soft - about one and a half hours.

Warm sugar in oven and add. Stir over gentle heat till all sugar dissolved.

Bring to boil and boil for 10-12 minutes.

Test for setting - cold saucer in freezer, take out - put drop of marmalade on saucer, let cool and push with finger. If it wrinkles it is done.

Unless you have a whopping pan you may need to do this in 2 lots in which case remember to split pips etc into 2 bags.

You should have put jars in oven to get warm so marmalade can be potted quickly. We, also, put the lids on a metal baking sheet so the heat of the oven will help sterilise them.

With modern jars there is no need for waxed paper discs. As the jars cool they will pop ensuring a good seal.

ps. Do not spill orange juice on a travertine limestone floor or it will be etched for life!