Thursday, 30 January 2025

Marmalade time again

Lovely to wake up to a bright sunny morning and cloudless sky after a decent night's sleep. In Gaza today an additional release of a group of hostages is taking place, Hamas forced to comply with an agreement made earlier to release one remaining female civilian hostage. Another group of hostages will be released on Saturday. Eight of those remaining are now said to be dead. No list of names has been issued as far as I know. There was a delay in releasing a hundred Palestinian prisoners, as a gesture of disapproval and warning by the Israelis about today's hostage release, accompanied yet again by a defiant show of force by Hamas fighters. It's such a delicate situation with neither side trusting the other. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war are returning to their homes, mostly in ruins, their land littered with bombs and ammunition that didn't explode. What happens at the end of the cease-fire is still undetermined. Will involvement by President Trump influence the outcome? We'll see.

I went out before lunch to get a couple of kilos of sugar for making marmalade, and a few other missed items on the Beanfreaks shopping list. We had mussels for lunch accompanied by millet as a change from rice. I slept for an hour before going out and walking for a hour and a half. The sky had clouded over, but it was relatively mild. When I got back, I started on preparing the oranges for marmalade making,  The batch of bitter oranges were jucier than the previous ones we used, the skins not as thick. Perhaps they weren't from Seville. After supper the marmalade was ready for bottling. It tasted as good as it was meant to. I filled the last nine jars we had in our jam jar store. 

Before turning in for the night I watched the third episode of the Gaelic drama 'The Island'  and then first episode of a Dutch crimmie called 'Sleepers' about a corrupt cop faced with international organised crime taking over from the local criminal network he colludes with. Quite a contrast in settings and stories.


No comments:

Post a Comment