On Saturday, on a whim, I decided to make some cherry jam. A couple of supermarkets are selling them at a reduced cost, and I (used to) love making jam, marmalade, chutney… Anyway, I got everything ready which took an age! You try stoning over a kg of cherries lol. The jam was bubbling away but showed no sign of reaching setting point. I used to have a jam thermometer, but I followed the instructions for it one time, followed them to the letter, and the damn thing went ping when it touched the jam and that was that. Broken! I tested the setting point a number of times, no joy, when suddenly it seemed to go very sticky so I turned it off. It cooled a little whilst I sterilised the jars in the oven and I potted it. Once it had cooled a little I tried a small amount only to find it’s very, very sticky. I’ve thinned it slightly with boiling water, and it tastes nice, but it shouldn’t be sticky. Oh well.

I’m not sure I’m going to bother with jam making anymore. Once it’s boiling I get very anxious about being burned by it, and last time, when I was making marmalade, it ‘spat’ at me and gave me a nasty little burn on my hand. First time ever that I’ve been burned whilst doing it. It’s very time consuming, and if the end product doesn’t quite work, such as yesterday, then it’s very disappointing.

My friend was out on Thursday. He and some of his friends went out to an event then he stayed overnight with one of them. He then went to a meeting on Friday a train journey away, stayed overnight, and came home on Saturday so our usual Saturday meet was off. We had planned to meet Sunday but he blew me off; he’s too tired. Meh! I have plenty to do. We might meet on Wednesday and go out on Wednesday night. If he’s not too tired…

My PC has finally died the death. It did some scheduled updates, and now won’t start again. It wouldn’t shutdown, so I pressed the power off button. Once it restarted it did a ‘fix’ but after 3 hours of that I got bored and shut it off again. It won’t start in ‘normal’ mode now. It’s pretty old, second hand, and had a ‘hard’ life so I think I’ll drag its hard drive out, kicking and screaming, hit it with a hammer a few times, and take the case to the local dump where they’ll recycle bits of it.

The borrowed laptop has been getting on my nerves in that my arm keeps undoing what I’ve typed, or even takes me off the page I’m on because I’m inadvertently brushing against the mouse pad. I’ve tried to turn it off because I prefer a ‘proper’ mouse, but no luck. It too is old. This morning I had a brainwave! I plugged a proper keyboard into the laptop, placed it in front of the laptop, and I can type properly without risk of undoing all my typing. Result! And I’m happy. It doesn’t take much lol

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and have a great week. I’m off and will pop in when I can. Busy week planned :)