Crayfish countdown begins

The traps are in the water! It took me ages to find a decent spot, it wasn't deep enough in much of the river. The access to the water was tricky too, most of the ground near to the water wasn't ground at all, it was interlaced reeds, which I found out when I stood on it and started to sink!
I've baited the traps with Felix, prawn flavour cat food! Hopefully no one will steal the traps and when I go check on them tomorrow, we'll have crawdads for tea?
Watch this space......

Tis The Season to be Jolly.

Stage 1 - Gather Ye Ingredients, Sloes, Sugar and GIN, lots of GIN

Stage 2. Wash, destalk and despider ye sloes, prick them with ye olde spiky cat brush.

Stage 3. 500mls gin, 400g sloes, 150g sugar, shake shake shake till mid December

Today I have mostly been Christmas (apologies for using the 'C' word in September) shopping with my mum and dad, we went to a local hedgerow and picked about 10kg of sloes. Then I went to the local supermarket and bought 11 x 70cl bottles of gin and a 5kg bag of sugar (and something for dinner! Imagine the funny looks I got on a Sunday afternoon!)

The sloes are now steeping gently in the sugar and gin, by mid December they will flavour and colour the gin, which I will strain and decant into gift bottles for Christmas pressies.

A good day's work. (Any suggestions where I can get cheap or free 500ml glass bottles with lids would be most welcome. The cheapest on the interwebs I've found is £2 each plus postage.