Of Raspberries

And then a mixed day, sultry and overcast this morning, warming and sunny this afternoon.  I finished work and we went picking raspberries on the fruit farm near Stansbatch, the other side of the hill from where we lived last year. A glorious afternoon, hot enough for straw hats in the empty field of raspberry canes - the strawberries, gooseberries and currants have all finished - and the fruit hanging on the branches like miniature bunches of grapes, velvet red and almost jewel-like, the sun shining through the fruit, motionless and perfect.  An afternoon of children sticky with fruit, sunshine, blue skies.  The plants too like lines of grapevines six feet high, the leaves already drying and turning to browns and soft reds, autumn-in-summer, reminding me of red wine and cooling days.  

I have developed a taste for soft fruit.  I remember my Scots grandmother's neat lines of raspberry canes in Dartington Road, some faint link perhaps with Scotland where they grow so well.