Returning from holiday

If you have ever thawed out frozen soft fruit you will know that liquid seeps out of the bag, like helium from a balloon, no matter how well sealed the bag appears to be. I had 5 pounds of jostaberries in my freezer before going on holiday and they thawed out whilst the freezer was turned off and the juices seeped out, down between the gaps of food below, and into the bottom of the freezer. Then, when the freezer was switched on again, the whole lot froze again and become entombed in a purple glacier that looks like it should be mounted in the Tate Modern. So on the first day back from my holiday I had to switch off the chest freezer again and thaw it all out in order to remove the food items one by one from the glacier and throw it in the bin. As it happened I decided to risk the jostberries and made them into jostaberry jam the same day, figuring that the vigorous boiling for several minutes would see off any harmful bacteria. So when other people at the end of their holiday might have been unpacking their bags, catching up on some washing and flicking through their post, I was tackling a freezer of damaged food and making an emergency batch of jam!