Moving seasons

After the ferocious sun of the last few weeks we appear to be in early autumn with misty daylight and cool temperatures - seems more end of September rather than mid August. Despite the dryness, blackberries are sensational this year; Mark has made batch after batch of blackberry, blackberry with elderberry, blackberry and grape, blackberry with whatever else is edible in the hedgerows. It's been difficult to allow time enough to nip out and gather fruit but with dog needing walks it's been combined, much to the eye-rolling of the hound - another stop-start-stop-start meander while humans pick stuff which I feel to be utterly not worth eating.

Dorset childhood autumn days were often marked with blackberry gathering wanderings: a basket, a curved handle walking stick to pull down the higher brambles, Mum and or my uncle Ben. If she'd had more time she would have ventured into bottling the fruit as her mother would have done for the winter months, but jam lasted well into the colder days, sometimes incorporated into cakes or 'fluff pudding' a memorable dessert made of evaporated milk, jelly and jam. 

The moving seasons probably mean that pomegranates are ripe, or almost. In our previous Southern France house we had several very happy pomegranate trees resulting in an abundant late autumn jam episode - one of the things I do miss from our previous region. I have noted a couple of trees hereabouts and will be surveying them, and their owners for generosity/fruit for jam trading possibilities as the days shorten.

More free food

November - sweet season of hazy bonfires, russety colours and . . . unpicked fruit.
In this part of the country we are lucky enough to be blessed with the king of fruit, or perhaps, goddess of fruit - the most beautiful, exotic, health-giving, and largely ignored, pomegranate (grenade). Our main tree gives enough to make jam, juice, syrup, salads etc, but we often forage for other overlooked fruits as it seems criminal to waste them.
Oddly, people will buy them from shops(?) - as well as other seasonal 'up for grabs' such as figs, walnuts and cherries; not enough time? too fiddly? I don't know but it seems a crucial part of the passing year however stressed or busy we might be, as much as blackberrying in the UK - also seemingly, largely forgotten when I was back there in the early autumn. Step backwards a little? bit less watching TV about people baking big wobbly cakes, or bitching over other peoples' table decor/dinners and a bit more time out in the wilds collecting the real stuff?

Free stuff

I know I've gone on about this before - probably many times, but it always amazes me how much free  food never gets taken/picked or gathered, certainly where we live.
We are blessed in this region with wonderful walnut trees - the nut of which I believe has super cancer-beating properties as well as being a king of free food, and totally delicious in cake, salads, etc.
There is a tree about the size of a double-decker bus down our road, always laden in late October/early November. A few autumnal squalls and the ground is covered with walnuts - which only we seem to collect. Is it a time thing? We are busy but find ten minutes to walk down the road, or  perhaps a 'can't be bothered thing' - just get some when we're in the supermarket.
The seasons come and go and we collect many other ignored fruits: apricots, apples, plums, occasionally a rare treat of an abandoned peach tree's fruit; figs, lemons - if down on the coast, and pomegranates.

The fact that these wonders of nature are ignored, out of all the other freebies, boggles my mind immensely.
A super food, crammed with minerals, vitamins, and the most beautiful colour when made into juice/jelly . . . everywhere for the taking, in peoples gardens, on roadsides . . . ignored. People do seem to buy them in shops - I see them, delivered from Spain - the same variety. Weird.
Anyway, we've done our jam batches, and now the free food slims down over winter until wild asparagus and 'nèfle' fruits, which no one ever picks (medlar in English, I think). There's always mushrooms, but we have yet to conquer our fear of eating the wrong thing, or being shot by over-excited hunters, which does occasionally happen . . .

Pulp reality

Our table outside looked like something from a Tarantino film yesterday - height of Pomegranate harvest time, and the knives were out.
These marvels of nature are the only think our garden really grows well apart from tomatoes; I've started planting a small orchard of them.
I love them for many reasons: the flavour, the colour, their cheerful flowers, the fruit from its green marble-ness through to the splitting, burnished finality.
A reoccurring motive for artists across the centuries, I can recall seeing their rounded forms carved into stone above doorways, on castle tapestries and in a thousand paintings from Caravaggio  to Cezanne and beyond.
Every year I mean to start a 'fete' to celebrate them We have fetes of everything else here: potatoes, pumpkins, truffles, wine – of course; snails, asparagus, bread, fois gras, charcuterie, ticks - nah, not really.
There's probably one more batch of jam to be made from the remaining tree, then I might ask a few people who seem to disregard their own crop, leaving them to fall. How can anyone ignore these fruits and leave but a few for the birds to pick over as the weather chills.

The turning year.

First of November. Socks must be found. The fire has now been lit five times and the animals are seeking warmth communally.
Yesterday was a real 'Jack the Ripper' day, perfect for halloween, misty and dank. It reminded me of those early winter mornings in London, walking through Spitalfields market across to Wilkes Street to work, the ghosts lurking in dark doorways of the black-yellow bricked buildings.
Back to this corner of France. Actually, I've just been out for a dog walk and the sock idea has been discarded for the moment. A bright, glistening day, the sky washed to a perfect clarity by yesterday's rain. Pomegranates must be picked. We've done two batches and juiced another bowlful last night for a halloween soup evening. I had a sore throat yesterday, but two glassfuls of the ruby liquid seems to have seen off whatever it was.
So, writing and gardening today, now jobs have been done. Huge amounts of cutting back foliage, and a bit of in-bed writing. First book is now on its, possibly, fifteenth edit, second, written and waiting the first cut, third at rambling stage.
We traded soups last night, Ruth and Chris took the remainder of the pumpkin, and we have their courgette and mint.
Soup, jumpers, firewood, bonfires, two duvets, jam gap after pomegranate. Next jam - cherry around late may.