The season of Seville oranges has come to an end and with it the chance to make Seville marmalade, by general consensus the tastiest of all marmalades. We have tried making others with ‘ordinary’ oranges combined with lemon, grapefruit or lime, but nothing quite matches the tart, slightly sour aromatic tang of the Seville orange.

Bob has been busily at work making batches of marmalade. His aim is to get us through the whole year with home-made Seville marmalade, never resorting to the shop-bought version – which, frankly, is a pale substitute once you’ve tasted the real deal, the orange peel lovingly and painstakingly cut by hand while listening to umpteen radio programmes.

Having polished off quite a few of our own jars already, we counted up the remaining jars and arrived at a total of 32. More than enough for the year, you might think, except that we and all our house guests devour Bob’s marmalade every day. (I know, I know: sugar, and all that.)

There are about 40 weeks until the next Seville oranges appear, so we can make it with 32 jars unless we get carried away, or the jars do.

We discussed the possibility of rationing. Perhaps we could set up marmalade alerts on our phones, to tell us when we may start the next jar? It would be like a huge advent calendar of marmalade jars, marking the steps through the year until Seville oranges next ripen in the Mediterranean.