What a gorgeous warm week, right up until the weekend that is! Many post-work sunny evenings were spent in the garden, ‘testing’ out the new sun lounger! (I’m pleased to say it passes muster).

In fact it was rather an outdoorsy week – after gathering some elderflowers from a neighbour’s garden on Wednesday, Bees & I made some elderflower ‘champagne’ followed by a day at The Royal Highland Show. On Friday I was given the chance to do a Champagne sabrage in Drumsheugh Gardens as part of a lunch hosted by Piper Heidsieck at The Bonham Hotel.

This weekend saw some serious weeding – that darned Rosebay Willowherb is ubiquitous here! It was especially bad around the Apple & Pear trees but all gone now!
After such a dry, warm week weather-wise, I spent a good bit of time wandering round with a watering can (we really need to get a hose pipe). I potted a couple of Bamboo plants, gave the bird table a jolly good clean and we got a lot of the old leaves and general garden detritus hoovered up and out the way.

Observations
- The ‘brewing’ slugs are almost ready to go into warfare
- The mizuna & spinach started sprouting within just a couple of days of planting
- The honeysuckle is starting to flower, our garden is going to smell delicious
- The grass seed is really sprouting well – we’ll have a little lawn in no time (then we’ll need to get a strimmer).
- The midges were especially bad this week (the downside to such calm days).

mind the glass bottles! http://cookingwithmrfitz.com/2014/07/13/mr-fitz-goes-pop/
Ha, sounds rather messy! Unfortunately we tried ours at the weekend and not a bubble in sight! Really disappointing as it was a recipe that has been tried & tested by a friend – no idea what has gone wrong but she suggests leaving it at least 6 months. How long fif it takes for yours to be so fizzy?
Hmmm no bubbles? Mine only took four days.. Then bottled and left for a further three. The second batch even less! That is disappointing!
Hmmm, strange – our recipe only had us leaving it 24 hours before bottling and ready to drink from 2 weeks, and we followed it precisely – really can’t think what has gone wrong (the exploding bottles was a problem last time my friend did it)