Things that make you go BOOM!

I found a drafted blog entry from mid-June that I wanted to share with you - it really tickled me looking back on it. I hope you enjoy:

I had an interesting experience this morning - I moved something off the kitchen table only to reveal a very strangely-shaped pop bottle. In its heyday, it contained 2 litres of Tesco's best effort at ginger beer, but being the adventurous type, I decided to try and make some Elderflower cordial whilst the girls were away. We'd run out of white sugar, so I had to use to brown instead, which has a much stronger flavour.

It just didn't taste right, so I took it out of the fridge and left it on the kitchen side, just as a temporary measure until I could be bothered to pour it on the compost heap. Well, this morning, one week later, I re-discovered the bottle, now expanded to bursting point, having now fermented a good part of the brown sugar into finest home-brewed elderflower wine!! The bottle was shaped more like a barrel than a bottle, and was so hard to touch, it felt like it would blow any minute! I immediately sprang into bomb-disposing-hero mode and sent everyone out of the way, which did nothing but attract them all to the danger! I carried it out to the garden at a snail's pace, fully aware that not only could it have taken my eye out, but I was also wearing my Sunday best, and didn't really fancy ironing another shirt.

Well, at arm's length, I slowly relaxed the bulging lid, expecting a little fizz as the bottle released its carbonic acid, but oh no! The fizz continued for nearly five minutes!! Finally, when all the gas had been set free, I took the lid off and cautiously took a sniff of my first, inadvertent homebrew, with the result that I nearly fell backwards, spilling the whole beverage on my white shirt. I've never smelled anything so powerful in my life: even sharing a missionary flat didn't come close to this stuff! I then proceeded to pour it liberally all over the compost heap, thinking that it would add variety of nothing else to the composition of my garden droppings.

For some weeks, there has been a strong and not particularly pleasant smell coming from the garden. In fact, all you need to do to experience it (should you want to) is step out of the back door, where you will be hit (and I use the word deliberately) by a strong, sweet, very alcoholic stench. Certainly, I intend to make the most of the experience and am now putting together a PhD thesis entitled "A study into potential uses of homebrew in modern biological warfare". I shall be adding that should my elderflower cordial not have the desired effect, we could simply catapult a barrel full of retired missionaries' shoes towards enemy lines!