the weekend round up

I truly marvel at people who grown their own produce. There is something brilliant about being able to cook with the fruits of your labour.

Sadly, I do not at this point in time have the space to grow any produce outside of what you can grow on your windowsill, and so I greatly appreciate it when others share the fruits that they have lovingly tended to for months until the tree boughs have given way to the weight of the ripe fruit hanging from their branches.

Having been given a bagful of damsons, I felt inspired to make something more than just a pudding. Chutney was the order of the day, but we didn't have quite enough to make a full batch. So, on sunny Saturday, John and I went on a bike ride to Long Ashon - the village where we had our wedding - to collect some more from the tree belonging to our kind friend who had given us permission to gather her damsons.

On arrival, we located the tree, found a ladder to reach the fruit which was tantalizingly hard to get and gave the tree some good shakes until the fruit could no longer hold onto its branches. There was something quite exciting about standing under a tree, hearing the leaves rustle & the sound of fruit falling to the ground, not quite knowing whether you might just end up with some fruit on your head. Thankfully, we survived the experience without getting our heads bumped. Although if Isaac Newton hadn't risked a bump on the head from an apple, he wouldn't have been the one to discover gravity, so it's not always a bad thing to be bumped by fruit...

Having filled up our container to the brim and met the friendly tail-less cat, we headed on our merry way home. If I'm honest, I should probably rephrase that. I was not so merry as I knew it would take us a good hour to cycle the 7 mile journey home & I am shockingly unfit, having had a couple of months of very little exercise. It was another of those moments of thinking this is character building & it's doing me good. 

next up: how to make chutney...