I finished the year on a high note!

Seems a bit redundant, posting about 2012 ending when we're fast approaching the middle of 2013, but I'm trying to catch up, so here goes:

On 27 December, I spent over six hours cleaning and sterilising bottles, and started to decant the liqueurs that were already in bocaux...

Did I need the bocaux to empty the freezer of sloes and pig damsons?

Why do you ask?
;-)

December 29 I worked in a t-shirt till 6.30pm before lighting the fire.

And by 6.15pm on New Year's Eve, I'd decanted all the liqueurs in the cupboard [bar two jars that contain still-edible fruit - I'm keeping them in the liqueur till we finish the fruit (which is yummy with ice cream)], and emptied the freezer into another set of liqueurs-in-progress

I'm going to leave them as long as possible until decanting this set (and am hoping to buy some more bocaux so that I'm not constantly running short; we sometimes see them at dépôts-vente for €0.50 for the large ones and €0.30 for the small ones, so it's worth waiting till I find them [in England they tend to be about £6.99 each!] with the exchange rate giving us €1.18 to the £).

It's quite a nice feeling now: just waiting for the mirabelle, pig-damson and damson trees to work their magic!