Brewin' and Freezin'

There are 40 pints of Christmas beer now brewing in their barrel in the downstairs bathroom. As Andy said when he inspected it this morning, 'It looks like one massive pint of Guinness.'

The making of the beer occurred last night and I have to say that the intial brewing stage smelled very pleasant and very Christmassy indeed. I think it was due to the copious use of cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, raisins, black treacle and oranges, and the fact the fermentation progress hadn't started. Anyway, Andy battled on for about an hour in the kitchen accompanied by various bangs and crashes and a certain amount of steam. My assistance was requested only once, when the contents of the preserving pan in which the aforesaid ingredients were being boiled needed straining into the fermentation bucket.

'What happens next?' I said To Andy.
'The brew has to be left for 4 to 6 days to ferment,' said Andy.
'Forty six days?' I said. 'That's never going to be ready in time for Christmas. More like Valentine's Day.'
'I said, four to six days,' said Andy. (Well, I had to get a pun in somewhere, didn't I?)
'Oh,' I said.'And then what?'
'Then it gets put into the pressure barrel,' said Andy.

I'm not liking the sound of a pressure barrel. Sounds too much like pressure cooker. My gran had a pressure cooker which, because she was fearless, she used a lot. But as a child, this piece of equipment used to scare me rigid and visions of my grandparent's house being sent skywards by an exploding pressure cooker frequented my dreams.

'A pressure barrel?' I said. 'Are you sure?'
'Oh yes,' said Andy. 'Definitely a pressure barrel.'

Note to self - line bathroom walls with super-strength and thoroughly absorbent kitchen roll. For I remember what happened with the elderflower champagne experiment earlier this year. You can still see the stains.

My part in the Christmas preparations is, as you can imagine, the gathering and preparation of food. I thought, I'd better defrost the freezer before I go shopping for goodies of the frozen ilk. I don't have a regular timetable for freezer defrostation; it generally happens when I can't slide out the ice cube tray with ease. And since that occurred somewhere back in July, a defrost is well overdue.

In order to defrost the freezer, I have to pull it out from its station 'neath the kitchen worktop to reach the plug and switch it off. As soon as the freezer is removed, this is the cue for the cats, i.e Phoebe the Fat, Tybalt the Tall and Pandora the Downright Nosey, to dive into the space left and get stuck under the kitchen cabinets. They then refuse to come out, and when they eventually do, they are covered in all kinds of under kitchen cabinet detritus which they then proceed to spread around the house.

So this morning I shooed them from the kitchen into the hallway, where they proceeded to sit with their noses pressed against the glass panels, and trying to form a kitty pyramid to reach the handle. Tybalt is actually very good at opening doors by swinging wildly on handles, so I had to work fast.

Freezer out, freezer switched off, freezer pushed back half way to prevent kitty intrusion of dark recesses of kitchen cabinets. Ha! Human overcomes cat!

'What's going on?' shouts Pandora, racing back into the kitchen. She investigates freezer baskets, ice cube trays and tries to get behind the semi-stuck out freezer.
'She's defrosting the freezer,' said Tybalt, who climbed on top of semi-stuck out freezer, then tried to get behind semi-stuck out freezer.

Phoebe remains silent, but immediately tries to get behind semi-stuck out freezer. Pandora diverts her attention from the freezer baskets and gets into freezer. Tybalt and Phoebe join her. I remove cats from freezer and replace with bowl of freshly boiled water to get the defrosting process underway. The freezer is more bunged up than I realised, and given it is a very cold day, this defrosting lark could be a long process.

Cats try to climb back in freezer with bowl of hot water. I remove cats. Cats climb on top of freezer and dangle over the edge, poking at drips that are starting to form as melting gets underway. Cats bat my hand as I scrape away with windscreen scraper meant for cars not freezers. I read somewhere you are supposed to use a spatula to scrape ice from freezers. I tried this method once. It was rubbish. Don't bother.

Cats vacate freezer zone briefly when I start using hair dryer to generate a bit of extra heat before realising the combo of a hairdryer in close proximity to a bowl of hot water is probably an unwise idea. Cats return and start patting water that is collecting in water collection receptacle placed on kitchen floor in front of freezer. Much malarkey ensues as cats continue to help defrost freezer.

But they soon get bored. Phoebe is now sleeping in the first sun we've had for what seems like months, Tybalt is sitting proprietorially on what is known as 'Tybalt's Step' by the telephone and Pandora is I don't know where but it's almost time for elevenses, and as soon as I open the biscuit tin, she'll appear because she is turning into a biscuit pest.

So not only are we Christmas tree shopping this weekend, we are also on the look out for a pressure barrel and food for the freezer.

Christmas Sausage making tonight. Hurrah!!