Last month I had a BlackBerry but when we moved house I put it in a box and now I can’t find it.
I can no longer text, call or email any of my friends. As a matter of fact, my fingertips are a little too big for the tiny keys anyway and sometimes sentences like “meet you for one in Holborn after work?“ come out as “ meer top dor one in Holbornaft err wok“.
It’s like the thing is translating my messages into Dutch.
Anyway, it’s probably a good thing that I can’t find it.

With all the extra time on my hands I’ve been out picking actual blackberries.
Everyone seems to have bucolic memories of childhood blackberrying trips ending up with woad coloured hands and the pervasive aroma of jam being boiled.
I have those memories too but let’s not go down the Werthers Originals advert avenue shall we?
I wonder if people will look back in thirty years with such fondness for their BlackBerrys?

Right now I’m having a little trouble remembering anything because of the pain I’m in.
My hands and forearms look like I’ve been trying to stuff a polecat into the cutlery drawer, my legs have the texture of woodchip wallpaper from all the stinging nettles and I managed to poke myself in the eye with an Elder branch which is only slightly better that a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Now I know how those carrier bags that get stuck in trees feel.

The trick is to pick so many that whatever you make out of them will last far longer than the lesions and when I’m enjoying a nice big dollop of bramble and apple jelly with my venison liver I may just recall the faint whiff of TCP but by the time the bottom of the last jam pot is reached I’ll be praying for sunshine and showers next August.

Blackberry Cordial

500g Blackberries
1 Litre Water
400g Sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Put everything into a pan, boil over a medium heat for five minutes of so and then smash up the fruit with a potato masher or wooden spoon.
Pass it all through a fine sieve, pushing as much juice out of the fruit as possible, bottle up and keep in the fridge.
Enjoy it watered down and iced according to your taste while you attend to your wounds.

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