Over the last couple of months I'd noticed that there's loads of sloes in the hedgerows where I walk the dog. I looked up the fabulously-named sloe.biz website and found out how to make sloe gin and figured I might as well have a go.

You're meant to wait until after the first frost so I deemed this weekend to be a suitable time. Lots of people had already picked the low down ones so I took my trusty aluminium ladder, an ice-cream tub, two dogs (we have a temporary extra one), Mattgreen to hold the dogs and Isabel to hold the ladder.

Off we went, in the rain, to the fields. I was a bit nervous about climbing up the slippery ladder and standing on the very top, on boggy ground, especially when Mattgreen and Izzy abandoned me to take the dogs for a walk. But it was fine, and I managed to pick loads of lovely sloes - too many in fact, and I ended up having to buy a second bottle of gin to use them all up.



What a shame ;-) Cheers!