This week was the first week it started to feel like Autumn (and definitely not Winter as I have to keep insisting to a certain somebody).

I’ve decided this year to try my hand at a spot of homebrewing (which will hopefully be a little more successful than growing my own veg which managed to produce a single snozzcumber). I’m going to go for some cider and perhaps a berry wine though I need to go a-foraging to see what I can turn up. Worst comes to worst I’ll steal a little blackberry wine from John when it’s time for me to mull my Christmas cider.

(Pic from The Big Picture)

I’ll definitely be trying this methinks.

The following Italian sourdough starter, or biga, uses the wild yeast naturally present in grapes. The fruit also provides the sugar on which the yeast feeds.

And now I have my big pot I’ll also be trying some no-knead bread over the weekend.

There’s a lot happening in the next couple of weeks, next week is Birmingham’s Ball and the  Final Fling, both of which I will be cocktail waiting at (though possibly a little more like this) and Saturday is the first Lions Test, which if I had to call my Test 22 right now I’d go for:

Byrne, Bowe, BOD, Roberts, Fitzgerald, Jones, Phillips, Jenkins, Mears, Murray, Wyn-Jones, O’Connell, Croft, Wallace, Heaslip // Rees, Vickery, Hines, Williams, Ellis, O’Gara, Kearney

Then the week after is AMSU conference (for which I need to reinvent Agenda magazine’s online persona) and then Glastonbury.

In amongst all of that I also need to:

• finish unpacking
• put whatever I’m not going to unpack in the attic
• possibly buy a piano
• start going to the gym and/or running and/or playing basketball
• watch series 5 of The Wire
• buy series 2 of Deadwood
• continue developing the SU site (see new development blog) and,
• buy more hangers

Slight worryingly this is apparently what my Granda has for breakfast – I definitely remember the mound of various cereals and fruits but the 7up’s a new one on me.