Blackberrying Holiday

For several days in late July we walked around likely blackberrying spots in search of ripening fruit.  Others were there before us -  the trampled grass and broken stems showing the impatience of other pickers.  But we put on our wellies and went a little further along the bridleway into the narrow wasteland that lies between us and the ring road where the builders busy themselves; to tracts damp and boggy where rabbits hide themselves, green rushes grow and meadow butterflies alight on willow herb and ragwort.

Here were blackberries tangled among the sloes that were slowly turning purple.  So we picked enough for our needs and relished the cache.  It set me thinking about annual holidays in August and September where we ended up doing the very same thing.  Our honeymoon in Brittany, self-catering in Wales and Suffolk, with friends in Eire, on visits to Cumbria; in each location we set out to forage and were not disappointed.

So this year as we wander through the little wilderness that lies ten minutes walk from home, I recall the happiness that holidays brought me as those memories superimpose themselves amid the sunshine of the present.