Channelling Mrs Beeton
Strawberry picking:
This is a summer activity for insane people. Instead of growing strawberries in your garden or going to the shops and buying some, people who are round the bend will go to a farm and get sore wet knees grubbing around in the straw getting bitten by insects in order to pick these red juicy fruits.
What is even stranger is that these people take their children along and their neighbour's children and then it all gets completely out of hand. Each child starts with a tiny basket and then, suddenly, fever sets in. 'Look, these over here are BIGGER and JUICIER!' 'I've got more than you!' 'Mine are NICER!' and then suddenly they want to fill a bigger punnet and then before you know what's happened you are joining in the insanity and thinking 'Yes! I can make JAM!' and all sorts.
Then suddenly you come back to earth with a bump when you have to pay the little man in the kiosk your life savings and you have to buy a Sherpa to take home your pickings.
And even though you have somehow acquired strawberries for Nanny and for the neighbour and everyone has eaten loads on the journey, you arrive home with a carful of strawberries that are now decaying before your very eyes in the heat and need to be done things with THIS VERY INSTANT, and you realise that in addition to all the other many things you need to do there will now have to be a trip to Asda to purchase sugar and lemons and suchlike and the ceremonial digging out of old jam jars from the cellar and so forth.
So, yes. That's a completely non-related to real life description of a British summer-time activity for you. Obviously.
In other news, I am completely knackered; and my kitchen floor is sticky and my kitchen full of preserving pans and sieves and demijohns and other unlikely artefacts. I wonder if these two things could be related... My little Ikea placcy containers have been pressed into use and are housing strawberry puree, strawberries layered with sugar and strawberries on their own in the freezer; there are a number of jars full of red stuff on the working surface and a tray of jam tarts (what is left of them) cooling in the dining room. I will tell you what the strawberry wine tastes like in six months' time (unless we are in Lindisfarne again, in which case Jane and Simon and Lyn and Floyd can tell you too :)
Davy went out to look at my few meagre strawberry plants tonight, as it is his job to check for ripe ones (he usually gets to eat most of them too, mind). He brought me back four. Four is a good number. I like four. Four can be EATEN and do not need to be preserved in any way. In fact, I'd eat one right now.
If I could look a strawberry in the face again...
This is a summer activity for insane people. Instead of growing strawberries in your garden or going to the shops and buying some, people who are round the bend will go to a farm and get sore wet knees grubbing around in the straw getting bitten by insects in order to pick these red juicy fruits.
What is even stranger is that these people take their children along and their neighbour's children and then it all gets completely out of hand. Each child starts with a tiny basket and then, suddenly, fever sets in. 'Look, these over here are BIGGER and JUICIER!' 'I've got more than you!' 'Mine are NICER!' and then suddenly they want to fill a bigger punnet and then before you know what's happened you are joining in the insanity and thinking 'Yes! I can make JAM!' and all sorts.
Then suddenly you come back to earth with a bump when you have to pay the little man in the kiosk your life savings and you have to buy a Sherpa to take home your pickings.
And even though you have somehow acquired strawberries for Nanny and for the neighbour and everyone has eaten loads on the journey, you arrive home with a carful of strawberries that are now decaying before your very eyes in the heat and need to be done things with THIS VERY INSTANT, and you realise that in addition to all the other many things you need to do there will now have to be a trip to Asda to purchase sugar and lemons and suchlike and the ceremonial digging out of old jam jars from the cellar and so forth.
So, yes. That's a completely non-related to real life description of a British summer-time activity for you. Obviously.
In other news, I am completely knackered; and my kitchen floor is sticky and my kitchen full of preserving pans and sieves and demijohns and other unlikely artefacts. I wonder if these two things could be related... My little Ikea placcy containers have been pressed into use and are housing strawberry puree, strawberries layered with sugar and strawberries on their own in the freezer; there are a number of jars full of red stuff on the working surface and a tray of jam tarts (what is left of them) cooling in the dining room. I will tell you what the strawberry wine tastes like in six months' time (unless we are in Lindisfarne again, in which case Jane and Simon and Lyn and Floyd can tell you too :)
Davy went out to look at my few meagre strawberry plants tonight, as it is his job to check for ripe ones (he usually gets to eat most of them too, mind). He brought me back four. Four is a good number. I like four. Four can be EATEN and do not need to be preserved in any way. In fact, I'd eat one right now.
If I could look a strawberry in the face again...