Arachnid hunting - Missing sector spider

After breakfast I took the juice strained overnight, added the sugar, boiled up and made just short of 5 pots of Hedgerow jelly, could be Glaze, it has'nt set ..... yet, but I remain hopeful. It will be presents so I won't get any complaints :-D. Next 2 more jars of dill pickles. I'm growing these gherkins again next year, they're such fun to grow, prolific fruiters, & they make good dill pickles. I need to add dill seed to my seed wish list. Will check out Wilko on Thursday, a few folks on a FB allotment page said they had bought seed at half price and less, so worth checking out. Hubby went off to Newton Abbot race course for his PCR test before his hospital apt on Thursday. Fingers crossed he will be okay. I did the vacuuming, nipped to the Coop to buy a few bits for Mum then headed for CK. I stopped off to pick up some redundant timber outside a friends house, then collected a bag of jam jars from another friend before arriving at Mum's armed with milk, dog biscuits, & Danish pastries. Gotta be done!  She's always moaning that her knives are'nt sharp, I sharpened them the best I could last week, I think it's the way she holds the knife. I took over peeling & coring the apples for her stewed blackberry & apple, popped on the stove to cook while we nattered. My brother rang so I  headed outside to her garden waste wheelie bin. There was lots of wildlife action last week when I was filling it, today there were teeny weeny snails all over the inside of the lid, 2 Comb-footed spiders, 1 aggressively guarding its recently hatched spiderlings, a crab spider, & one other I have'nt managed to identified. I took a few pics then as I was walking back around the bungalow, having thought I'd got today's Tiny Tuesday blip I spotted another spider hanging below the windowsill, which I've just identified as Zygiella x-notata - Missing sector spider. I managed 2 pics before I checked out if it was dead. It was'nt. IT swiftly plummeted earthwards and away from the happy snapper. Habitat - Frequently found on window frames .. That's it then.
I left Mum's, dropped the timber off at my allotment shed before returning home .. in trouble again. I've been too long at Mum's. I made lunch then washed the jam jars removing the labels. A nice random shaped collection of jars perfect for preserves.  One more large basin of blackberries plus some windfall apples so put them cooking. I think I might have to source another pair of tights in the not too distant future, I've used the present legs for straining fruit for the past 5 years, Mum used them before me, not sure she actually wore them, just used them for jelly making,  so they've done well. I might even push the boat out & purchase a jam straining bag. This batch of cooked fruits has gone in the tights, tied around, & hanging from a bamboo cane, resting on the underside of a freestanding kitchen trolley. A tad precarious but it works. I'll make the jelly in the morning.

Chicken, bacon & mushroom pies for dinner. I made the filling before watching The Chase, planning to wrap it in filo pastry that I'd taken out of the freezer earlier, not ENOUGH earlier, as it was still frozen when I went to use it. Improvise Vivien, improvise. Suet in the fridge .. bish, bash, bosh, suet pastry made, only needed half, the other half gone in the freezer. Pies made & in the oven. Did'nt need spuds, just homegrown carrots & runner beans to accompany. Yum!

Thanks to Jill Orme JDO for hosting Tiny Tuesday this month

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