Life's little pleasures

Right – where to start. I’ve been doing quite a lot but my writing time is limited as Shortland Street is on soon. That and I divide my computer time between writing the blog and playing canasta on the computer. Ahhhh Shortland Street. Ahhhhh Canasta. Anyway enough about my guilty pleasures – Looking back on this I note that I sound roughly 50 years older than I am. Should I take this opportunity to point out that I also Crochet? No perhaps that will not do my reputation any good…

Gooseberries. Well I’m still picking the thorns out of my hands, arms legs etc. Is it just me or is picking a good prickle out of your hand/foot/whatever one of the greatest enjoyments available. Even better getting in there with the pin in someone else’s finger! Fantastic! I do wonder though whether that is just me, it does seem quite wrong when I write it down.

So gooseberries grow on plants not dissimilar to black and red currants but with REALLY big spines. The gooseberries of the Cardrona valley are fantastic – it is almost impossible to find two plants producing identical fruit – green, yellow, white, red, pink spots, smooth, hairy, really really hairy, big, small, tiny, round, oblong, teardrop shaped – amazing variety. I guess all the bushes have just been interbreeding since the miners brought them here.

Anyway we collected two buckets full, which is an awful lot of gooseberries. It’s even more gooseberries when you sort them out by colour, pack them into eight ice cream containers, try to pack it into your luggage along with the 3lb of rhubarb, bag of strawberry leaves and two horseradish roots. Oddly the amount seems to multiply further when you bring them home try to fit them into the fridge and then have to top and tail each individual berry. Sigh.

So anyway Shortland Street is on and I have some more gooseberries to top and tail.