Elderflowers for cordial

I picked a big bowl of elderflowers - about 50 heads - for the second batch of cordial. It sounds a lot, but we have a lot of elder trees, in hedgerows or self-sown, around the garden and orchard, so there will still be plenty of berries for the birds - a lot of them are inaccessible to me, too high or surrounded by too many nettles. I try to make the cordial quite concentrated, in the (possibly vain) hope that we thereby dilute it more and consume less sugar per glass. The flowers are set to steep overnight with lemon zest in two litres of boiling water, then the liquid is strained and boiled with 1.5 kilos of sugar. I know a lot of blippers do this - I'm sure I don't need to teach my grandmother to suck eggs.

It was a hot day, so I didn't want to work in the garden in the middle part of the day, when M was here supporting J. Instead, I sat in the shade on the balcony with some mending, hand sewing awkwardly shaped and positioned patches to repair frayed fabric both sides of a seam on P's trousers. It's questionable whether they were worth the time and effort, but I replaced the zip not long ago so I didn't want to give up on them so soon, and it was pleasant sitting sewing in a warm breeze with the view of the valley spread out below.