OK I know I said I’d be making chilli oil and putting it in one of the now famous Lakeland bottles, but I think I need a rethink.

Y’see the chillis just won’t go into the bottle. Not without a hammer anyway and I think that’d kind of spoil it all round. They’re just too big – all of them – these habanjero family ones (dunno which branch of the family due to an accident with the seed packet) and certainly the jalapenos, which are the size of sausages!

So what do I do? Forget all about chilli oil? Nah – I’ve promised DM chilli oil and chilli oil he shall have. That means we eat these little beauties and we buy some bird eyes for the oil – they’ll fit through the neck of the bottle I’m sure.

We are now on the home straight with the chillis – there are only a dozen or so left and they will all be gone in a couple of weeks, I’m sad to say. I was a bit flabbergasted to see the chillis on Gardeners World last weekend (this has been back on the viewing list due to the demise (and not a day too soon) of Titchmarsh’s stint as presenter and with my new hero Monty Don, who seems to me to be much more of a real gardener than Titchmarsh ever was).

Anyway, the chilli trials they reported on last weekend said there had been bumper crops this year but we didn’t get one. I suspect we just planted too late for a good crop so next year we’ll be planting much earlier and even trying some outside.

…….well that’s if we ever get ourselves into a situation where we are up to date with our chores and not so woefully behind that we’re struggling to catch up all of the time.

I was thinking to myself this morning that I need to have the vegetable garden re-fenced (the old, rotten, non-rabbit-proof one went in the skip at the weekend) and with the beds all sorted by February – but of course February is only a few weeks away now so I think I must be deluding myself. There are only so many hours in a day and I’m already working every waking one of them yet all I seem to do is make things worse, not better.

Maybe what I need is a bigger rethink than just rethinking how to make chilli oil – maybe I need to have a rethink about life and whether it’d be better to hide under the kitchen table for a few months and hope all the mess and dirt goes away of its own accord. Do you think that’d work?

Strangely enough, last year I was photographing infused oil.....and pontificating on my bonkers-ness for inviting myself round to supper with friends then commandeering their kitchen and cooking the meal - I had been in quite a run of it apparently! This year - bonkers-ness abounds again - I can hear music in my deaf ear - what on earth is that all about???