What a year for blackberries, brambles as i call them. I can remember one year picking brambles after a hard frost and it was the easiest picking ever. Mind you the fingers were numb in minutes. But the frozen brambles came away so easily and into the margarine tub. There are few tastes from my childhood more vivid and memory jogging than bramble jellly. I still love it.
Obviously so did Seamus Heaney - is this poem not a marvel of long ago reminiscence, remembered delight, mouth-watering recall of those moments when our taste-buds learned how to explode?
Blackberry Picking, Seamus Heaney
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full...
While on the subject of wonderful fruit - it's the Victoria plum season, and oh my goodness, apart from chocolate, I happily forego all other sweets and treats to eat my fill of these fruits of Eden. You think an apple is a temptation....... :)
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