Frustration

Even after finding that Tesco stocks Certo (a poem there, surely?), the cheat's marmalade-setting pectin, and going specially to Tesco and buying some, and reboiling the marmalade in three batches with the Certo and decanting it into jars yet again: EVEN AFTER all this, I still have a very large number of jars of bitter orange sauce. Actually, I think the third batch, to which I added extra lemon juice and sugar as well, may be going to set, but the first two batches look distinctly liquid to me. It must be the recipe, which I belatedly see has more water and less sugar in it than most. If I ever make marmalade again, I shall use the tried and trusted 1960s Good Housekeeping or Constance Spry recipe, not the cool and trendy millenium goddess one (not Nigella, this time). Whether it may set a little more overnight, or whether I can bring myself to reboil it for a third time, or whether we will just need to buy some duck or vanilla ice cream to use it up with, who knows?
In other news, I went to talk to the nursery class at E's school about "Being a Vet" - surprisingly hard to pitch a talk at a level for three year olds to understand. I showed them an X ray of a tortoise and tried to get them to guess what it was, but was bemused when several of them thought it was a bumble bee, of all things. Given I'd just told them it had a shell, I could understand "snail", which was the other suggestion, but bumble bee? They enjoyed the Xray of the cat that had swallowed a needle, even if they didn't recognise the needle in the picture; and they all listened to my heart through my stethoscope, which was quite sweet. It's amazing how quickly one forgets the way a very small child's mind works, though; it seems like another world now.
Unlike the teenage mind, which seems all too familiar, although generally less tortured this week than last, mercifully. Only one more week till half term, which is good, as well.