A thought on blackberries.

When I was a kid my parents often took me and my sisters over to Shotover Hill on weekend mornings, not far from where we lived in Oxfordshire.

It’s an ancient forest and hill, with a decent view of the shire. A Royal Forest too, whatever that is, until the 17th Century. And when they were in season, we’d pick blackberries up there. All decked out in our absurd 1970s garb we’d have been quite a sight, I bet. Like a long-lost Fleetwood Mac album cover, the five of us arranged against the deeply shaded and untamed fruit bushes in our old and pale bell-bottomed denim.

I remember too that we all shared a beat-up blue Tupperware with a white snap-on lid. We’d all collect our handfuls and then walk over to my mum and let the fruit run like so much bubbling water into the bowl she cradled against her belly like another child.

Mum would bake the berries the same day into deeply seedy, sweet-sour pies that I can bring to mind much more easily than I can remember tonight’s supper here on this unimaginably distant side of the world. I’d pour evaporated milk over the hot crust, and watch for that cream to turn a pale purple.