We were on Countrywise Kitchen last winter. They came and did a bit of filming of us making cider. Anyway I have finally got round to editing the DVD they sent me to produce a three minute clip of us on telly. This involved new territory for me. Downloading various DVD to WMV converters and merging the two resulting files into one. Of course Windows media maker did not work probably and cut off the last few seconds ruining the whole thing. Anyway a good learning experience. Might have another go at some sort of video in the future.

Go on have look http://bit.ly/lbet3t

Herefordshire Cyder at Checkley Brook

Selling a barrel of cyder to the British Army today. It's going out to Waterbeach barracks for an officer's ball.

This reminded me of an amusing (to me anyway) passage from my father's book The history and Virtues of cyder about cyder as a national English drink.

"Social reform was seen as one of the major avenues to prepare for the coming of the new millennium. It was suggested that landowners should be legally obliged to plant a certain proportion of their land with fruit trees. R. Austen, who wrote a Treatise on Fruit Trees in 1653 (it included "The Spiritual use of an Orchard"), approached Cromwell with an appeal for state aid in a national scheme for the planting of fruit trees. The appeal was unsuccessful, but it embodied many of the points that were to be used many times again: the planting of fruit trees in hedges and orchards would supply timber, both for joiners and heavy use; the bark would supply the tanner's needs, which were currently raising the price of leather to a very high level; wood useless for construction would provide fuel; the general adoption of cider instead of ale would save malt, the wood used in preparing the malt (as fuel) , and the grain itself, freeing land for other purposes; moreover, cider was a such a health-giving drink that Englishmen, newly prosperous from following the above advice, "would be strong and healthy People, and Long-Lived, able to goe forth to Warre and bee a terror to all our enemies".

So cyder seems to have had great social implications in the past. To some extent many of the points made then are true today. As far as making English strong and a terror to our enemies, well I'll just have to ask the army after they have drunk some!

Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook