Blackberries and scrumped apples....

So, about those blackberries.

They seem to be nice and juicy this year, the result of the perfect summer I expect. Yes, I know that there are those of you that think this summer hasn’t been that great, but I shall remember it as one of my sunnier ones. Anyway, we gathered our blackberries on the lane down to the far right beach at Abersoch. There were plenty and the deep purple juice stained my fingers red.

As a child blackberry season was a treat and we’d collect loads, although I have no recollection of what my mother made with them. We just gathered just enough to make a couple of crumbles. In years gone by this time of year was so important. It was the jam making, preserving, pickling season and kitchens would be full of jellies, vinegar, and Kilner jars. Of course it still happens, but less so and those that do it are usually doing for pleasure rather than necessity.

We took our blackberries to the cottage and I scrumped some apples from a neighbours tree so that we could make blackberry and apple crumble. I remember the scrumping raids as a boy, climbing walls and rushing to the tree to snatch a pullover-full of apples. My hand-knitted jumpers we always baggy at the front, what with the carrying of apples, pears, or conkers in my makeshift woollen basket. I was always in trouble about it – along with everything else.

Anyway, we stewed our hedge blackberries and scrumped apples with sugar, put them into a couple of dishes, and froze them. Keeping our crumble fruit for the long winter nights when a taste of late summer will be like a ray of stolen sunshine.