Lemons

So, Steven and I are getting married in exactly a month.

I suppose I really had better start making wedding preparations... Jokes

Thing is everything is going swimmingly well, Ive had to do hardly nothing except pretty easy things like outfit, picking out cutlery, music and my bridal shower (mind you my maid of honour and mother are doing more than me in that respect).

One thing that has been on my mind more than the wedding would you believe is our flat (apartment to you North American folks). Aside from the sunshine daisy cotton candy joy of marrying the one I love the other thing Im looking forward the most is having our own home.

Seriously this is a big deal to me. Ive been wanting this since I was 13, maybe even younger.

Ive been to college, lived in a dorm and dealt with random guys streaking naked passed my room covered in coffee granules. Ive flatted with other christian girls and found them to be a right royal pain in the arse. Ive boarded with a woman and her 10 year old daughter discovered an unknown hatred for Miley Cyrus music and American teen sitcoms I never knew about. Ive lived with persons (older woman, two older guys) who introduced me to the brilliantness of Jon Stewart and turned out to be lot more interesting to live with than the missionary kids despite the general lack of bathroom cleanliness.

Wherever Ive lived, Ive tried extraordinarily hard to make the kitchen in use the kind of kitchen where wonderful things were created, things were organised exactly as I organised it and above all things the rules I made for the care of my knives and tupperware would be upheld. This had never happened. Aside from my hope in Jesus, my secondary hope is in a pantry cupboard where someone hasn't screwed with my labelling, jar turning and geographical brilliance.

So I am currently living with my Mum and using her kitchen in a way that sometimes annoys her (ie "MELODYYYYY!!! Where did you put the baking powder!!!" "In the place where its always been!! "I don't see it!!! Oh wait, there it is!!!! Why isnt the label facing the right way!!!!). I swear the jar turns itself, 'cos I know how annoying turned jars are..

ANYWAY..

So we as a country (New Zealand) have officially entered into winter (dun duh duh DUUUUH!!) and mum still has a huge glut of lemons growing on the tree in the backyard. Not content to watch them eventually fall, rot and decompose FOUR times longer than the average fruit n vege scrap, I collected an entire colander of lemons (theres still enough for 3 years worth of lemons to eat through on the tree though). I took these lemons, donned a pair of my mums surgical rubber gloves (she's a nurse) and grated and juiced the whole lot into a an ice cube tray and once frozen I put the little cubes into labeled ziplock bags to be kept for winter lemon cravings or as additional Vitamin C in my anti flu brew.

I believe this is pure thrifty genius.

I live in a city called Christchurch which is located on the Canterbury Plains in the South Island of New Zealand. A lot of words I know so heres a map to help the overseas folks reading this.

The awesome thing about Christchurch in the winter is that the area is known for hoar frosts in the winter. This begins at night with rain or storm type weather (sometimes even a smattering of snow) and by dawn the entire sky clears up and you wake to a blinding sunny morning with sunshine that literally hurts the eye balls (after a couple of grey wet days, no wonder). The scenery gives the opportunity for amazing photography. The down side is that the temperature seriously drops. Not earth shattering news for the boy who grew up in Manitoba and knows truly cold winters but for me its horrible. And for a lemon tree - its murderous torture. The hoar frosts causes practically every living plant to look as if its been coated in white sand paper. As a kid I used to often enjoy walking to school through the nearby park and hearing the blades of grass beneath my feet literally break like glass

I don't quite understand the ins and outs of caring for a lemon tree, but somehow without any work done on the tree at all every year our lemon tree/bush continues to give fruit.

When I find a decent price for a block of butter at the grocery store (for a huge dairy exporting country like us its nastily expensive to buy our own products), I will make a jar or two of lemon curd..

Heaven knows (and my mother) every autumn I will continue to take my pilgrimage to said lemon tree and take my tiny sneaky fill of lemons...