Elderberry syrup

Inspired by last night's episode of countryfile (oh yes!) we went on another foraging expedition today for elderberries. Elderberry syrup is said to be a cure-all medicine as well as being super tasty, more effective than tamiflu (and much safer!) as well as making a tasty mixer for many an alcoholic beverage (it's purely for medicinal purposes, promise!)and, we have discovered, much fun to make...we adapted the recipe based on what we had to hand and based the quantities on a few recipes we found online, they used star anise on the tv, which I bet would've been lovely, but we've run out, so here's what we did...
pick all the berries off their stalks (I reckon we had about 1.5 kg) and put in a pan, just covered with water, add a big chunk of root ginger, 20 cloves and a stick of cinnamon, bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour. Strain through muslin and add 1lb of sugar and the juice of a lemon for every pint of juice you have (we had about 3), stir 'til sugar is dissolved and then boil rapidly for 10 mins. At this point we decided it wasn't syrupy enough and boiled it for too long, and now it's cooled its turned into jam(!) so we have returned it to the heat and diluted it with water, it's now a much happier consistancy and tastes scrummy...I am now rather looking forward to the first cold of the season!