A visit to a Charity Shop

........is always dangerous for me.

Today (Tuesday) I have come back with a very large baby steriliser unit that has a nice deep lid for £3.  That means that potentially I can process 8 bottles of home made cordial in this new one and six in the old unit.  I have spent £5 on the two units in total and it makes the unit easy and clean to use when processing lots of bottles of cordial.  You can leave it on a work top and get on with something else.  Much better than slaving over a hot stove with steam and water bubbling everywhere.

One of the problems using larger bottles for storing cordial in is that once the bottle of cordial is opened you have to store it in the fridge; but prior to that you have trouble finding a pan to hold the deep bottles in.  I have that sort of equipment but have found that for the two of us and for general long term use, using the hex bottles are simpler to process in smaller amounts and if you want larger quantities then you use a couple of bottles.

Remember that the home made cordials are akin to flavoured syrups so you don't just to have to use them for making a drink but you can use them on ice cream, cakes and other puddings like rice pudding and semolina.  There is always plenty of options its just a matter of trying things and keeping those ways of using as long as it works for you and your family.

As you can tell I am starting to get geared up for a very long preserving season amongst everything else on the to do list.

I have also come away with a brand new Per Una wool Fair Isle style jumper that has not been worn - £2.50.  Thank you very much pinks and purple colours on a cream background. Not everyone's choice but I like it. I love a warm jumper.

Two very large pine picture frames for £4.50 apiece.  The frames are in very good condition and I have primarily bought the frames to re-use them with in displaying some of my previous work.  What with the cost of framing these days it works out a lot cheaper in the long run to do it this way.  However the frames do have some prints in them but they seem to be rather good quality ones of The Trevi Fountain and somewhere else in Rome, Italy so I am going to check these out.  I think they are probably prints that have been bought without frames as they certainly do not have any mounts in them.  The frames are a lot bigger than the prints but I will check them out in any event.

So not many finds but some nice finds which I am happily chuffed with.  They will all come in extremely useful.

Catch you later on.

Pattypan

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