Midsummer Madness

| 27th June 2022

I love June and, whilst it’s usually mad dogs and Englishmen that throw caution to the wind, we’ve been getting out in the midday sun – and have had a great time!

Often with the best weather of the year, we’ve been teaching in schools, running around after swarms of bees and cooling off with regular swims in west London lakes.

The photo above is from our recent Introduction To Making Cheese (next date: Tuesday 11th October) where we made Hand Stretched Mozzarella, Tangy Feta Cheese, Mould Ripened Camembert plus bread and crackers using the leftover whey.

Snapseed (19)

Wow, what an achievement, earlier this month, I was thrilled to be part of a team swimming for 24 hours, in relay, to raise money for Level Water who provide one to one swimming lessons for children with disabilities. A total of 400 swimmers took part and between us we raised over £120,000. Thanks so much to everyone who sponsored me, there’s still an opportunity to support us!

 

 

Snapseed (18)

We have been continuing with our summer series of Bee Keeping courses, the next dates are Saturday 23rd July followed by Friday 5th August. We’ve currently got 4 colonies in the garden at Hen Corner, all at different stages, so there’s lots to see and loads to learn. If you have younger children around for the school holidays, check out Bees for Children.

 

 

We were delighted to have been asked back to Elthorne Park High School to support their Food and Nutrition GCSE course by teaching both bread and cheese, we made hand stretched mozzarella and plaited loaves. The students did really well, we had to work at quite a pace, but needless to say, school lunch was good that day!

 

 

Swarm in holly tree

Last week a friend phoned to say that she was working with some children in a Cranford park and had noticed a swarm of bees hanging in a tree above them! No worries I told her, I’ll be with you in half a hour. They were safely collected and have been transferred to their new hive in the garden of a home for adults with learning difficulties.

 

Jam making

As the sun continues to shine, we’ve got some lovely courses lined up, including Full Day Bee Keeping and A Day at Hen Corner. Join us as we make the most of wonderful seasonal produce with Making Scones and Jam and Introduction to Pickles and Preserves.

If you have little ones with you over the holidays, do check out our range of Family Courses.

Looking forward, we start a new series of Online Bread Classes in September.

 

Adult events coming up:

Full Day Bee Keeping Saturday 23rd July, Friday 5th August

A Day At Hen Corner Tuesday 23rd August

Introduction to Pickles and Preserves Tuesday 30th August

Full Day Making Sourdough Tuesday 13th September

Family events (Summer Holidays):

Family Feathers & Fun Tuesday 26th July

Bees for Children Tuesday 2nd August, Wednesday 24th August

Where Does My Food Come From? Tuesday 16th August

Other news:

  • All the bees are doing well, they’ve collected in loads of blackberry nectar and are now enjoying the local lime trees
  • We are picking strawberries at the allotment by the kilo
  • The chicks are continuing to grow fast, it currently looks like only two are boys that will need rehoming

Jobs for the week:

Thanks for joining us on the journey, have a super summer!

Sara


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2 comments

iamthesunking 27th June 2022 at 12:08 pm

I made elderflower “champagne” once and it was really hard work! We had to pick lots of microscopic bugs off the flowers … but the bugs were exactly the same colour as the flowers and blended in really well!

Reply
Sara Ward 27th June 2022 at 1:31 pm

Ah! No worries, they all get filtered out… 🙂

Reply

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