Country produce
OK first things first, what do you reckon to the new look for the blog? Sleek and sophisticated. I can’t decide whether I changed it for the better or simply for the sake of change. I like it, I’m just not sure whether the bubbly orange across the top will stay or go. I have been thinking about a France flag, but I haven’t decided yet.
Earlier today I noticed that there were a few hornets buzzing around, so I spent most of the day hacking great branches off our two fig trees - for some reason figs attract hornets like, well, children and puddles. It seems a shame really, because the branches are laden with ripe figs that just got thrown on the compost heap. But really, you can eat a few figs a day but 50 or 100 is not possible, and they can’t be frozen or kept.
I did once try making a fig preserve thing but frankly it wasn’t very popular. Well frankly it was unpopular, to the point that the whole family refused to let a bowl of it on the eating table, and Mrs B said it was ‘her or the fig preserve’. Tough choice, but what can you do.
Similar with the blackberries. We’ve got millions at the moment, and I am very happy to go and pick them. But…half of the blackberries I picked last year are still in the freezer, because no-one is really all that keen. so what to do?
Mrs B says she will have another go at jam making this year if I pick enough. She tried last year, and destroyed a large pan in the process and made jam with the consistency of broken glass, so we aren’t at all sure it’s worth the bother.
Well, that’s country life for you - watching fruit fall over the floor and rot while everyone else is buying tasteless apples in supermarkets and wishing they could get fruit that tasted ‘like the old days’. If you’re passing, stop by - peaches, apples, pears, figs, blackberries, it’s like a greengrocers here. Never mind ‘Pick Your Own’, more like ‘Please Help Yourself’.
We offered the children money to collect the zillions of apples (not very nice eating apples) that fall around the back of our house, but they refused unless we agreed to negotiate higher pay and later bedtimes, so that probably won’t come to anything.
The one thing we don’t have, which is strange since we are surrounded by plum orchards, is plums. Happily various neighbours have more of those than they can hope to eat, so we won’t go short.
Anyway, I’m starting to panic about tomorrow’s bike ride again - yesterday turned alternately windy and rainy so I couldn’t go for a last minute practice, but perhaps it will be rained off anyway (seems doubtful since we now have clear blue skies but anything is possible). Wish me luck.
