Preserving fruit and the husband

It's that time of year when I get all keen to fill the pantry shelves with bottles and jars of homemade stuff.

L-R: tomato and chilli relish, spiced plum chutney, tomato chutney, and at the back, tomato sauce. Some of each will be coming to the UK with us - one of the benefits of travelling business class is that I have sufficient luggage allowance to do this. The big question is whether David has enough socks for me to put jars in ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 On Friday I made about 4 litres of tomato soup, using up the remaining tomatoes from the 2 x 4kg boxes I'd bought before the drama of David's eye. I was going to take the soup up to Turangi where we were meant to be going for a Zero Degrees weekend (us retired people can have weekends any days we want, and this one was going to be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). However, after a couple of pressure tests on David's left eye at a local optometrist on Friday and Saturday, and a conversation with the ophthalmologist, we realised being away from Wellington when other people are working and may require David to front up to the hospital, heading away for a weekday weekend was not going to work! So into the freezer went the soup.

The feijoa jelly that I started on Friday night and finished on Saturday - other times I have made it, it has been pink. I think that this time I didn't leave the fruit to boil as long - I was tired and needed to get it cooked ready to go into the muslin bag before going to bed. It needed to do its dripping into the bowl overnight, so I could put that in the fridge until we returned from Turangi. See above for why it got finished on Saturday ... Even though it's not pink, it tastes yummy.

Today I am using up some cooking apples, some pears and some rhubarb; and I have a pot of fruit chutney on the go. I am loosely following a recipe in the Edmonds Cookbook - I say loosely because it doesn't mention pears or rhubarb and I have swapped in prunes for the raisins - well, I had prunes but no raisins. However I have been pretty faithful to the seasonings and spices, so we shall see. It'll be fine with cheese, because there is almost no fruit that doesn't go well with cheese, eh?



It has also been the time for looking after David and preserving him in the best shape possible.

In to bed at Southern Cross Hospital. He was looking a lot better there than when we arrived as Janet had given him some anti-nausea medication. At that stage none of us were aware that what he was suffering from was acute malignant glaucoma and that nausea is a symptom of that. The only reason no-one knew was because we hadn't told them yet ...

He had an ECG before his surgery and, given he is fluffy, he had patches shaved ...

He was cold - one of the effects of the acute malignant glaucoma that hadn't yet been discussed or diagnosed. So Janet covered him in this blow-up blanket that is filled with hot air through the strategically placed tube ...

About to be wheeled away wearing the most fetching of caps ...

I didn't take any photos when we went over to the public hospital to deal with the left eye's acute malignant glaucoma - somehow, photography was not on my list of "must do" tasks.

You'll be pleased to know David is feeling substantially better and his right eye, now the cataract has been removed, is performing very well. He noticed almost immediately (well, when we got home from the hospital on Wednesday) that colours look truer, and he has since discovered that his focal length has extended - at first he was concerned that he had double vision, as he couldn't read properly when holding his phone close. I suggested he hold it further away, and YAY!!

According to the ophthalmologist, we are expecting he will have his left cataract removed on Wednesday or Thursday this week as an acute patient - fingers and toes are crossed.