Two Fruity Notes.

I picked up a windfall apple this morning that was perfectly formed but on the small side. Tonight I tried to eat it, and gave up for the sake of my stomach. I think I’ll put it in the greenhouse where a little wood mouse lives. I wonder whether little wood mice like under-ripe apples.

And this evening I encountered a couple of Shire residents picking blackberries. It reminded me of my childhood, when we would go out one Sunday at the end of every summer for the same purpose. My mother used them to make enough bramble jelly to last until the end of the following summer. Eventually the practice ceased, and she took to buying damsons instead.

So it was that my childhood was divided into the bramble years and the damson years. Oh, how I longed for some strawberry or plum jam bought from a bloody shop! Ungrateful wretch, wasn’t I?