under another sun

Up and after two days of pubs, I prepared breakfast and thought about living in an enclosed monkish life contemplating and praying quietly. Lorraine a bit snuffly and coldy. Having eaten and doing some laundry we repaired to the garden and lurked in the open air. Another hot day, but the forecasts say rain is likely in a few days.    In the afternoon I went to Morrisons, bought some jam sugar with pectin, and a bar of chocolate for Lorraine, and then made off to various places where I'd seen blackberries on my travels. I picked a kilo of them, which doesn't sound much but takes plenty of time. The berry gods took their payment in thorn tips in my hands that are impossible to get out, and my shins being stung a good deal by stinging nettles. There is a glut of fruit this year, all a month too early and many of them dried up due to the climate crisis of a summer we have been having. So far August has seen 1% of the average rainfall for the south east of England. I noticed big ju...

Now that the schools are going back, the weather was warm and sunny. After Lorraine had eaten breakfast with Sam, I went off a-foraging. Armed with Tupperware, I went to the first of the places I identified the day before -- but did not need to go further afield, as I managed to get just over a kilo of blackberries from the first of my sites. Blackberries accomplished I found the crab apple tree on the side of the hill, and picked up early fallen but fine apples. Their sourness shrivels your face into a repulsive puckering but they are bursting with apple flavour.  Walking home I thought how a small but judicious addition or small crab apple pieces would add not only pectin, but a welcome note of tartness to the sweet niceness of the blackberry. This would be a jam that didn't mutter hi to you as you ate it, but bellow a full blown Howdy ! on your tastebuds .    As I approached home, I noticed how tingly my hands were with all the nettle stings on my hands, not to mentio...

Felt a good deal brighter, and not exhausted when I woke up. A domestic day, where I made my first bean jar for some time. Felt great to be able to boil my beans, chop my onions and carrot, and add a few herbs from the garden to add to the parsley I had bought yesterday, and then have the bean jar, from Moulin Huet pottery, which they don't make any more, filling the place with a lovely aroma of slow cooking shin beef, haricot and butter beans, herbs and onions. Sam tried some too, carefully picking out the bits of meat. As they ate it, Sam and Lorraine kept discussing what the bean jar was a bit like, rather than focusing on the timeless glory of the bean jar itself. On the scale of my bean jars, this one was slightly above average, but not stellar. In the afternoon, Lorraine and I drove up to the hill fort to scope out the foraging, and we ended up picking almost a kilo of berries. I had brought two left handed gardening gloves (you need your picking hand naked as God intended) a...

Up early this morning and working on a bit of work for mes amis in Paris. The storm had died down, and one of the tomato pots in the garden had blown over. Luckily I was able to right it, and everything was still intact. The French work, about palatable animal antibiotics that improve compliance, finished to Val satisfaction,  I had a bite to eat, toyed with the new poem in the back garden, then made off into the scratchy brambles of the golf course around Hollingbury hill to get another tupperware full of blackberries, not quite as much as last time, but around 800grams worth. Took a lot of picking, both easy and hard, as there were plentiful nettles between the brambles I got stung lots as well as scratched. Still it was worth it. Home again, and chatted with Carl and had a good laugh, although Ellie had an accident in her car but is okay. Lorraine home early, from having worked at school, and we pieced together little bits of film she shot welcoming people back to school. Sp...

Another attempt to interview Krishnan editor of Neon magazine today, and this time it was all fine, thank God and I could speak in joined up sentences and everything. And Krishnan was as interesting as he was the first time round. Much relieved. Lorraine out with Beth this afternoon, and I poured into jars another batch of the jam that Lorraine and I had started this morning, another six jars of Kenny Farm plum jam.  Spurred into action, I went for a walk this afternoon up to my usual haunts around Hollingbury Hillfort, and collected 1 kg of blackberries in a large tupperware tray. I managed to sting my hands lots on stinging nettles, which in turn set off the gnat bites from yesterday, and picked up several scratches. But it was all well worth it. There is something gleeful about foraging like this, good food for nothing, and I was forcibly reminded of Dave my grandfather, who liked nothing more than liberating fruit from the wild and (on occasion) other people's gardens.  ...

So up bright and early this morning, and down to Preston Circus to meet Anton, dapper in his grey and black walking gear. Onto a bus and into the country. Anton had selected a PK pleasing route of mild mannered woodland walks to break me back into it gently. Lovely to be back in the beautiful English countryside near Lower Beeding and hear the wind blowing through the trees. I love that sound, and it always makes me think of walking to Icart Point. Naturally the second we set off on the path it began to spit with rain, but this cleared instantly and it was a perfect walking morning. We stopped in a pub after an hour or so, had a bottle of sparkling water, and shared an exemplary sausage baguette Anton had made. Then more walking, Anton who has been weirdly running most days lately, springing up hills like Tumnus the Faun as I laboured after him. At one point we passed some shifty looking men and a little boy crouching by a pond with a rife and silencer, illegally after ducks. Event...

Sunday and a lots of things to be done. Lorraine and I off to buy sugar for making jam, some jars and then off into the countryside the other side of the downs. Lorraine wanted to experiment with jam making. Stormy sky and some rain as we stuck our arms into the scratchy world of thorns. This all great fun however, found that you get your eye in and see them. They looked like they had been expertly picked today, but still found enough for a bit of jam. Found myself loving the colour of blackberries just before they were ripe, that dark soulful red. Rather like my thorn slashed wrists. Home and filled in the idiotic forms, having to formally assert that nobody fished or hunted on my land. Then an amazing Biblical style hailstorm with thunder. Had some really nice roast pork, then Lorraine did some jam-making. Then in the evening, we booked our tickets to Japan. My wallet had to find somewhere quiet to sob, but it is going to be brilliant. Below Lorraine in the damp fields be...