Monday, July 30, 2007

The blackberries are ripe!

...gloriously ripe! After all this rain, today's sunshine has just burst upon them so they are just rejoicing in their juiciness...time to pick them and make jam, to fill shelves, to eat on buttered toast, to serve on pancakes, and to enjoy like anything all winter. Phoned Margaret E, local friend with delightful bunch of children. Small daughter has been pleading to go blackberrying. Spent evening washing jam jars. We always need quantities of home-made jam to sell at the Towards Advent Festival at Westminster Cathedral Hall. (Sat Nov 3rd. Got the date? Put it in your diaries now). I spent part of today folding leaflets reading for mailing out to parishes

5 comments:

On the side of the angels said...

Please don't you start!!
As I was walking my wife home from work she was discussing preparing for Christmas when she returns from the fortnight away with the children next week in Southend!!

The Sun has only just come out after all the rain - and you're talking about Advent!!???
I want my summer back - I want to revel in the subsequent season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - I have no desire whatsoever to think about the massive overload of meat products I am going to be inundated with to stack shelves [without any assistance] in preparation for the secular Xmas. Enough Goose-fat to smother ten thousand channel swimmers - enough Apricot and ham flavour sausages to go round the earth twice....

Please , please, please let me look out my window and see the passers-by pick the berries from the bushes opposite. It's July!!

I lived in the US and in the height of june the New York toy shops had christmas trees and tinsel in them - please let the seasons be the seasons. I have no social life so I don't have a calendar; [yes I'm a boring if somewhat lonely sad individual] but let me heartily sing:

"Lord for tomorrow and its needs, I do not pray!"

I was born the day humanae vitae was promulgated - I was thirty nine last wednesday and already the catholic blogs are talking about preparing for the fortieth anniversary of H.V. [and Louise Brown's thirtieth birthday]- give me a break please ! Don't you think I feel old enough as it is ?

wink!

Anonymous said...

I live in the US and there are no Christmas trees up anywhere! I have never seen a Christmas tree up in June or July, Aug etc -unless in a Christmas only shop.In fact the only "trees" we are interested in at the moment are our blackberry bushes and apple trees and so forth.
I am coming to England soon and hope to enjoy some summer fun even though it has always just rained constantly when ever I have come before.
The berries look wonderful-and so does Joanna on her trust worthy bike!

Phil said...

Having been raised by my grandmother (after my mother’s death, when I was ten-years-old), I have many happy memories of she and I picking blackberries, raspberries, loganberries (my favourite) and the like. Large former ice cream cartons would be used for the ‘harvesting’, while small ones were used for the freezing process. Remaining fruit was turned into the most delicious jam. Nowadays, I walk past bush, upon bush, all ripe with fruit and destined to be wasted as no one in the vicinity seems interested in picking it. This says something of our attitude towards modern living. (By the way, have you tried using natural juices instead of sugar in the jam-making process?)

On the side of the angels said...

...reminds me of my vocations weeks away with the diocese of Northampton held at The Grail in Pinner.

raspberries so sour they could turn one's tongue inside out - one mathematics-obsessed seminarian who loved the sound of his own voice above all others - even he was compelled to endure the beneficent wonders of a mystical silence after partaking in the crimson comestible.

[I'm thinking of using some if I hear my children swearing]

Jordan McClements said...

Glad you liked my photo.

Thanks for using it!