Marmalade Mission Accomplished

It is done!  Yesterday I made my first batch, using 1 kg of Seville oranges.  I decided against doing all of them at once, in case it didn't turn out.  However it seemed okay this morning, so tonight I made the other 1kg, and this is the result, now cooling in the jars. 

I'm very pleased with it, not perfect, but PDG (pretty damn good) for a first attempt.  Absolutely no good for those people who don't like peel though, 'cos the recipe didn't say how much of the peel to chop up and put in, so I put it all in! Maybe I'll cut back a bit next time.

On a much less happy note, today was the funeral of the husband of my work colleague.  Three of us went from Perth, and met our boss, who had travelled from Edinburgh, just outside the Crematorium in Glasgow.

It was a huge funeral, as those for younger people often are.  Many of us were standing in the foyer, and many didn't get inside at all, but stood patiently outside in the freezing cold.  I think it was a fine testament to how much regard people had for the man, who I regret I never met.

Our workmate and her little boy were very brave, and it was a humanist service, with the main eulogy written by our friend and read out by the celebrant.  Although there was no speaker system and those of us outside the actual chapel were struggling to hear anything, we did catch the odd wee phrase. 

I felt my eyes fill up when he read out on her behalf: "I first met ........ when he spilled a pint down himself, and I laughed".  Aye, it's from such inauspicious events that most of us meet the love of our lives. 

As we walked back to the car I know each of us was privately wishing her all the luck in the world in dealing with her new life, and thinking of that wee boy learning to be a man without a Daddy to show him how.