You take approximately 750g of ripe elderberries (rinsed and de-stalked, natch), 200g of granulated sugar, two table spoons of lemon juice, two diced cooking apples and about 2 pints of water. Stick 'em in a pan and boil until you've squeezed every last drop of goodness from the elderberries. This should take about ten minutes. (Remember to remove the pink foam that will form on top of the boiling goodness.)

Then strain your elderberry juice through a clean tea towel (it will stain your tea towel!), dice another three cooking apples and put them into the elderberry juice, boil until apples are cooked (and add sugar and lemon juice to taste - usually I don't see the need, though).

Serve hot in a mug with a spoon to fish out those delicious apple bits. It's toe-curlingly wonderful stuff.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I have been working on a pair of fair-isle fingerless gloves to match my autumnal hat. I'm two rows away from finishing one glove and I think I will leave it at that.

It is not that it is not pretty. It is not that it is not a quick knit (each glove takes less than two evenings worth of knitting time). It is not that I do not have enough yarn. I am just not feeling it, baby.

Granted, the fit is awkward (slouchy where I'd prefer snug) and I have issues with the pattern (such as increases not fitting with the colourwork). But I could deal with that - ripping out the excess fabric and adjusting the increases - if I knew I'd wear the finished gloves. But I'm pretty sure I won't. The hunt is still on for autumnal gloves, then.

Finally, a few links:

• I want this bathroom.
• I want one of these hats (and generally want more people to wear hats!)
• Scientists draw squid using its fossilised ink. Amazingly cool.
• Scotland's oldest robbers are, of course, local boys.
• While the UK condemns ring-wing groups, something is still rotten in the state of Denmark.
• Finally, if you are able to use BBC's iPlayer, I recommend Peter Capaldi on Scottish portrait painting and the first episode of Tweed, a docu-soap about Harris Tweed. For someone who claims not to watch much TV, I have been watching quite a bit lately..