The First of the Strawberries

English strawberries have appeared in the shops.  Ours this week came from Staffordshire. We had some for breakfast, which we managed to eat outside; a still morning, warm and sunny at 8.30, the bank alive with bees and insects.    I am developing a taste for strawberries; we had some juicy ones today but yesterdays were slightly sharp, a sweet and thin taste; as if English sweetness is hard-won, difficult to hold, elusive.   

When I was about 10 I would go to Nottingham with my mother to drop her sister off at a friend's house, where she would stay for a week or so.  I remember how empty the roads seemed, especially if we set off very early in the morning, we seemed to drive through great empty stretches of sunlit Cheshire.  On the way back if we were lucky we would buy strawberries from a stall at the roadside - there are lots of stalls here even today - and the smell from these one or two punnets of fruit seemed to fill the whole car. Sunny, empty roads and the smell of strawberries - a vision of summer.  

But still no sign of the camera!