blue booze

The weekend did not start well when I was down in Glasgow getting ready to go through a shed-load of stuff before I drove north (wrap and post nephew's present; go round to dad's flat to sort his mail; collect large valve for water turbine from Port Dundas industrial estate; check and email plans down to Cotswolds; buy supplies for 2 weeks in wilderness; dismantle computer and pack into car) when my dad 'phoned to say that the water system had started leaking into the sitting room and he was trying to find the wrecking bar so he could demolish the bedroom wall to access the cold-water storage where the leak was coming from, oh and he was in a really bad mood.

The possible outcomes were so terrible (wrecked sitting room; wrecked bedroom; violent father; unusable water system) that I decided to do nothing apart from email Campbell a diagram of the water system and 'phone him back 5 minutes later to suggest - gently - that he try isolating the storage tanks until I got there. When I met him (at Faith Raven's 80th birthday party in the hall of Ardtornish House: a grand event in the comprehensive rather than elitist sense since every man, woman and child within 30 miles was present) he was clean and jolly so obviously apathy had worked.

When we both drove into Drumbuidhe the next day he admitted that there had been an initial leak when a pipe junction blew, and that, when he fixed that he opened a tap which subsequently flooded the storage tanks hence the water pouring through the ceiling which was fixed by simply closing the tap. After mopping the floor and drying the carpets the sitting room is fine and the television still works despite being left switched on throughout the deluge. Campbell keeps referring to the fact that he will tidy the mess the leak left but since he didn't clean the sitting room and hasn't - in the past 2 days - done anything about the bedroom (move the beds back, tidy the carpet he cut away, clean the carpet, remove tools) that seems unlikely. I'm still hoping that he will act on the hints I've been dropping for the past 2 months and go back to Glasgow for the next 2 weeks so that I can have some time up here without having to clean up after him.

As a final thought, here is the recipe for Blaeberry vodka shown above. Blaeberries (blueberries, whortleberries) ripen from July to August this far north and, with a paucity of deer but lots of sunshine this summer has been excellent for them and this is the last week to be able to pick them before they disintegrate into blue mush. I walked along the track to Dorlin this afternoon searching for chanterelles (found just two) but spent a happy hour collecting blaeberries (and probably ticks) listening to Mark Kermode's film podcast.

Fill a clean bottle 1/3 full with blaeberries; add sugar 'til it fills in the gaps and comes up to the same level as the berries; top up with vodka (the cheaper the better but make sure it's at least 37.5% alcohol otherwise it won't strip the colour and flavour from the berries); leave as long as you can and then start experimenting with cocktail recipes (if in doubt just add ice and fizzy water).