Tuesday 7 December 2010

Berries and Blizzards

Some time back my father who is a great countryman and writer penned in one of his writings that the wonderful harvest of wild berries in the hedgerows would herald a truly hard winter and I scoffed. The end of 2009 and Spring of 2010 were very hard weather-wise with very many snow-days...I really couldn't believe that it could be worse this year and I wallowed in the wonderful free hedgerow harvest that abounded thinking only of bramble and apple pie.
The Bramble that produces a Blackberry....everywhere but Scotland where the fruit is known as bramble too.

 Every day I would head out with dog Rosie bag in hand and make our slow collection brambles together. Rosie has a a penchant for fruit and so do I so we would pick thus - one for me, one for Rosie and one for the bag, one for Rosie and one for the bag, one for Rosie and one for the bag. It took a lot of days to collect our black gold

I would never have believed it would all end in this!!
deep deep snow


I hate it, it has kept us housebound for days, but it is stunning too. There are a lot of bad things about snow - everything takes longer, everything is harder, everything is colder and scarier because driving in this is horrible.
Good things about being snowed in - home made bread, spicy lentil soup, stew......and bramble and apple pie.