WINNER!

Congratulations to Lisa from Scarborough who was the lucky winner in our dehydrator competition.

I hope she enjoys it and gets many year's use from it.

Look out for another competition coming up soon.

You will be automatically entered if you are a registered customer of Lovejars or you can sign up for our newsletter from our facebook page www.facebook.com/lovejarsuk/

I have been very busy with Classes at Jam Central so not much time for making and facebook live filming this week.

We started off last weekend with a visit from a 60th Birthday Party. They were staying locally in some wooden lodges in the grounds of a hotel overlooking Rutland Water. The guests had arrived from all over Europe and had a drinks reception on the first evening, in Oakham Castle.

The next day they were dispersed across the county to shop for the birthday barbeque in the evening. Some went in search for wine, some for meat from the local rare breed farm, some for lovely cheeses and quite a number came to the little Old Smithy to buy preserves as gifts to take home and to eat with the meal.

It was quite a hectic couple of hours but I thought it was a charming and original idea, one I hope I will remember for the future.

We have also held a Professional Day in the week, I always enjoy these days and hearing about everyone's plans for the future.

Yesterday it was a class for would-be home preservers amongst which there was a couple who had been given the class as a Christmas present last year. Seems like we are popular in the celebration market!

I did manage to get a fatless mincemeat made this week, which tastes delicious. It is a variation on the Luxury Mincemeat I make which has a fair amount of butter in it and I have called it Marjorie's Mincemeat. This is because it is based on the deep red Marjorie Plums and it looks gorgeous. I keep being asked for a vegan mincemeat so this is my response - I will get the recipe written up this week and post it for you.

I feel guilty that I have no particular offer for you this week - so how about a discount code for the next week? Just enter CELEBRATE at the checkout for a 10% reduction.

Keeeeeeep preservin'!