The turning of the season

Rosehips and elderberries amongst other things.

Standing at the stone gates looking straight ahead feels like staring back in time, as nothing much has changed here for centuries. I like to think that the grimacing carved eagles who stand guard on top of the tall gate pillars must think the same. An avenue of huge horse chestnuts and lime trees stands proud. Hay bales wait in the fields on either side of the track, as they will have done for ever. Buzzards call from high up above you, the only sound to bring you back to the here and now is the occasional drone of a car in the distance.

Time slip.

There are subtle changes though, as the last days of summer signal the changes ahead. Leaves bright, now twist and fall, sienna, crisp, stems-tightened and angled awkwardly as they lay in piles on the edge of the drive. The end of summer. These conker trees caught my eye a month ago, already telling me that the change in season wasn’t too far away. Spiky green casings that when peeled away, hide every school boy’s favourite game. Holes punched through, soaked in vinegar and baked till hard as wood then tied with string. Brittle though. One well-placed thwack and the game is over.

Autumn.

The vast bushes of thorny roses that stand by the lake, taller than me, bright pink petals that I use for vinegar, plucked away, leaving the rosehips. Crimson then carmine, the skin smooth and firm, the crowns sharp, removed with a twist then split open with my fingers using a small spoon to remove the seeds and spiky hairs. The itching powder of forgotten days. Rosehips are part of the arrival of autumn for me, the fat round fruits of the wild Japanese bushes have the biggest yield. If I walk down through the meadow, past where the badgers have dug their sets underneath the glowing red bark of the Wellingtonia, agrestal rose bushes that for some reason grow wild as part of an old boundary are full of tiny fruits. More elongated than the ones I pick from the garden; last year the birds got to them before I did. Every time I walked that way I’d tell myself to leave them another day, wanting the colour that little bit deeper before filling my bag, though the birds didn’t care about my reasoning.

For someone who is nervous of spiders (though I’ve taught myself not to be such a child), I seem to have no fear of sticking my hands into hedgerows and wild bushes, pulling away at whatever it is I’m collecting. Yesterday I spent a hot afternoon picking heads of elderberries, clutching at the black clusters of tiny fruit hanging over my head, again those that the birds had left me. South-facing bushes yielded less than those that faced north or those that were shaded. I love the smell of pulled elder, that slightly cyanogenic tang though I know to be careful. My hands stained purple, and do you know I’m sure that the small cut on my finger felt better after a few hours of being rubbed and soaked in the juice of vitamin C-rich fruit? I can’t even remember which finger it was as I type this.

On the cool white slab of kitchen marble, now turning an alarming shade of dark purple, whilst sorting through kilos of berries, stripping the little fruits from the brightly coloured stalks with a fork, picking out the occasional hard green ones and removing the stems (the alkaloids in unripe elderberries, stems and seeds are poisonous so you must be careful), I found that I’d picked at least six decent sized spiders out of the hedgerows with my hands. Every time I moved the mass of stalks another eight-legged beast would walk out. Coaxing them onto the tip of my fork I let them wander out of the window. There’s enough room for all of them here, and off they scuttle.

I’ll make jams and syrups with these. Simmering the black fruits with a little lemon and a splash of water to extract their juice, before measuring like for like with sugar, stirring it into the hot black juice and letting it bubble for a while to concentrate the inky syrup. Pour it over vanilla ice cream when it’s cool. Delicious.

The rosehips it’s said are sweetest after the first frost though I know if I wait that long the birds will beat me to it. Crab apples and rosehips, cooked with sugar and set with their natural pectins to make a blushing pink jelly. Very good on buttered toast. Very good brushed onto venison haunch that’s been cooked ‘dirty’ in the embers of a fire. Sticky and sweet, with a crunch of good salt and a twist of Sarawak pepper. Another spoonful of the jelly on the plate as an accompaniment to smear the warm sliced meat as you pick it up with your fingers. Fermented young blackberries add a sourness and crunch to the occasion.

Rosehips, cut and chopped to be added to a brown sugar curing mixture for fish. A chunk of salmon, demerara, salt, pepper and rosehips, rubbed and pressed for two days to make a different type of gravadlax, keeping a handful of the brightly coloured chopped fruit mixed with pink peppercorns to add to the fish after the cure has been washed off. Sliced and served chilled, sharp and sweet at the same time.

I love the promises of this time of year, of what I know to expect. What I know I will find in the hedgerows and in the woods under the trees.

We will harvest honey this week from one of our hives.

Apples, plums and pears are beginning to be ready in the orchard, though the whole crop of one plum tree, a Yellow Pershore, fell down in a rainstorm. I never even got one as the wasps found the fallen fruit before I did. Still, there’s at least two trees full of deep purple President’s to turn into jam.

Until Thursday

William