OK it seems that there is only about three things that you can do with quince. Should that be quince or quinces? Quinces just sounds wrong somehow. Like sheeps. Anyway, you can make quince jelly, quince jam or quince cheese. Quince cheese sounds the most interesting and as Guy keeps pointing out "Just what are you going to do with all this jam?" It plainly isn't cheese but the texture of the word cheese itself sounds more interesting. I imagine a kind of grainy, fruity fudge. It sounds delicious and you serve it with blue cheese or sheep's cheese - anything tangy.

So I knocked of the last remaining quince and wondered just where did all those hundreds of golden, downy quince go that were up there just last week? I suppose they dropped off and rolled down the road somewhere and so I was reduced to making up the rest with windfall. I cut off the bad bits and was left with exactly the right amount.

After making the sugar syrup you add the fruit and then you boil until, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, "It is ready when the spoon, dragged across the bottom of the pan, seperates the paste, showing the clean bottom of the pan – this may take up to an hour." Two hours later and I'm still stirring and dragging the spoon across. No parting of the Red Sea as far as I can tell. And when finally it has reached a point that could maybe approach Hugh's description take it off and pat the paste into a couple of trays and put it on the lowest possible setting for 4 hours. And then we had to go out. (I did take it out of the oven.)

This morning I broke a very nice wooden spoon trying to lever the "cheese" out of the pan. You could coat roads with this stuff. I've put it in the fridge – it keeps indefinitely – hardly surprising given that it's deep red, shiny, glass-like surface looks like its been spewed out by a volcano – and I suppose in about six months we will do what I should do right now – transfer it to the bin. That or fill some cracks in the chimney with it.

So all this because I don't like waste. "All that fruit going to waste" I hear myself say. Let's tally it up. Apart from the 4 quince it took 1 kilo of sugar, 6 hours of fuel, 1 broken spoon and, so far, 1 baking dish that I cannot remove this quince tar from.

Hmm. Not so very carbon friendly.