I love picking blackberries,wild cherry plums too, and they are both plentiful round here. Also kind people put free windfall apples outside their front gates to go with the fruit. I made eight jars of hedgerow jam and several jars of bramble jelly and also made crumbles and put them in the freezer. So satisfying. I am very keen on jam making though I eat little of it myself. I just love to see a row of freshly filled and labelled jars in the kitchen.
Some of the Darling family are camping in the Isle of Wight, where they go every year to a specially beautiful, quiet place on Shalfleet Creek which is always known as The Land. I have never been a devotee of camping, but next week the campers and more of the tribe and I are renting a large house at Freshwater Bay. There will be four generations there, with me as the eldest and three of the great grandboys will be the youngest. We always try to congregate in the Island for Julia`s birthday on 21st August. We did it during her lifetime, and have done so ever since. We read some poems and perhaps have a bit of singing and dancing too. We are like swallows and swifts who go back to the same spot each year.
I am going to travel on my free bus pass: Brighton to Portsmouth and then Ryde to Freshwater, but I will have to fork out for the ferry. I am just doing because I like a challenge. I always sit and read the Guardian on Saturdays, and then do the prize Cryptic crossword. (Sister J does it as well and though we sometimes have to appeal to son T for the really impossibly hard words in the end, we keep it going for days.) So I will just do the same as usual but on the bus. I often have really interesting conversations on the buses too. Having a bus pass has really enriched my life. It is far more enjoyable than driving around in a car, but sadly there are too few buses in Ditchling, so I often have to drive to Brighton first.
I am just waiting for the mobile library which only comes every three weeks now due to the cuts. It is always a treat to climb up the steps into the cosy booklined van. I will need a good supply for the holiday as I will not be able to scramble down cliffs or swim in the sea or go for long walks as I used to do, but can sit happily reading instead.