Wednesday 29 May 2013

Leaving on a jet plane

I'm feeling a bit distracted at present.  There's a lot going on with family, school, Nadfas...  At least the organ is sorted out.  Not sure if I mentioned that, but a few weeks ago a heavy hymn book fell off the rest and the corner hit a key, which shifted a strut so that a note kept playing.  At the time, about ten minutes before the service was due to start, I couldn't do much, so I whizzed home for my clarinet and played that instead.  Better than singing unaccompanied - actually, probably better than me on the organ.  Even sight-reading and unpractised, it's a lot easier to hammer out a tune when there's only one line of notes to read.

Various other things will be spoken of in due course, not yet.  But today we took a few hours off and went on a tour of Adnams brewery, distillery and distribution centre.  This is probably the nearest equivalent, but we got lunch too, as shareholders.  Only a few shares, to be honest, but it doesn't matter.

Darlings, what I love is enthusiasm, and that's what you get there, especially from the Chairman.  He's so knowledgeable, too.  He was able to go back several hundred years in terms of knowledge, but was bang up to date too.  Adnams is the only place in the country that produces spirits from its own grain: that is, from first to last.

Ooh, let me digress.  Ben just went to the Sage's table and picked up a rubber band.  "Excuse me?" said I (the Sage being out of the room).  He sucked the whole thing in his mouth.  From a good 12 feet away, I exerted Power of Z to make him come here and give it to me - I should remind you that he is a deeply disobedient dog.  I'm quite relieved to find that he knows I'm pack leader.

Right, so pure vodka has to be ... I think ... 96% ethanol, and gin and whisky are made from that.  The process was explained - bear in mind that methanol=bad, ethanol=good.  It was so interesting and you don't have to like spirits (I do) to appreciate the explanation.  Oh, and the yeast has been in constant use since 1940, so it's unique to the company.  Isn't that brilliant?  It's alive, of course, so the more it's used, the more it grows.

After we got home, I met someone who, I hope, will supersede me as Nadfas Area secretary.  She's lovely and will be far better at the job than I was (I should say that I've made the job simpler, but only because I had to because it was soooo time-consuming).  If this goes through, I've unloaded another whole job!  School stuff continues to grow, mind you, I'll still be busy.

Sorry about yesterday, I was going to write about something, not sure what, but then Weeza phoned and we had a long chat, and then I had an email from a friend who has moved to New Zealand.  He and his wife were from there originally, but it was a bit out of the blue - actually, there was a message on the answerphone a week or so ago, just saying hello but I expect he wanted to tell us then.  He bought some china in the last sale, which he was going to pick up next time he was in the area.  I'm guessing that won't be for a while, now.

4 comments:

Blue Witch said...

When bees supersede, the new queen kills the old queen...

Z said...

I'm only secretary!

Roses said...

I rather like the idea of yeast carrying on over time.

I was fascinated that yeasts in found in a Mayan dig in South America were used to recreate an ancient beer. This is after they had been dormant for many 100s of years.

Z said...

They check the yeast against the original batch every few weeks to make sure it's the same. They're a good company, they have integrity.