I am a Pog of my word, and as such I have spent the last four hours making a mess that the kids I looked after on Friday night would be impressed with.  However, I am now the proud owner of 6 pots of jam in two different flavours (apricot and blueberry & passion fruit) :o)

I’d like to say that my colleague was right when she confidently assured me that ‘any idiot can follow those books – they’re dead simple’ (referring to the one that arrived anonymously in the post last week).  What I can say is that she was almost right.  I only had to phone Pog’s-jam-making-help-hotline (my mum and dad) three times and I have to say that lovely neighbour chose just the right time to lock herself and her family out the house and have to come over for the spare key…

There are a couple of lessons that I have learned from this experience:

• Norman can open packets of apricots
• Norman gets very territorial over the one apricot that he liberates
• The only way to get blueberry stains off your work surface is with ‘Cif, a brillo pad and some elbow grease’ (thanks mum)
• When the recipe says to put a saucer in the freezer to test whether the jam sets it means before the jam is on it.  Put a saucer with jam on it in the freezer and all you achieve is frozen jam drops on your fish fingers
• A glade candle disguises the smell of burnt sugar and fruit after about 3 hours
• To avoid the small of burnt sugar and fruit in the first place it’s probably best to invest in a bigger saucepan.  Or just a second saucepan (yes, I only have one, but I firmly believe in minimal washing up so I rarely need another as all my meals are made in one pot).

I’m not quite a domestic goddess, but I’ll give myself the title of domestic Pogess if it is ok with you.  Having sat down with a cup of tea, toast and some of the freshly prepared jam I’m stunned to be able to say that it’s actually rather lovely! :o)

tea, toast and a spot of home made jam, anyone?