Yesterday, as my Oxford contemporaries discovered whether they were moving up or down the slippery pole at Westminster, my five year old son Joshua and I celebrated getting a sex pest suspended from his work, by going blackberry picking. It is horses for courses I guess. But boy was it fun as we discovered two new spots where nobody seems to have been and which were dripping with blackberries. Joshua’s motive is that if we picked enough I could make more cordial which then becomes ice cream. His birthday party looms and he is keen that his friends have his favourite ice cream. Meanwhile…
I am making pots of ice cream of different flavours (today it is rhubarb & ginger) for Sharestock and also want to offer blackberry jam (as well as damson jam) at breakfast and tea on Saturday. Yesterday, we picked 1.75 kg of blackberries which you can see below mixed with sugar. That will become jam tonight assuming I can find another 50g today. Joshua and I will pick those in the churchyard, after his school, to complete the jam and a few more to top up cordial reserves. The bottles next to the jam are of lavender cordial which I am also brewing up most nights this week.
