Harvest

Whether it was eating more strawberries than went in the basket at the 'pick-your-own', or trying to catch apples before they hit the ground as we picked them in the orchard, whenever I think of summer I remember fruit picking, now it's Amelie's turn…

The branches of the plum trees in our garden are heavy with the ripening fruit.

We picked 15lbs in about 15 minutes and the trees look as though they haven't been touched. I think the surplus produce basket in our village shop might soon be filled with plums!

Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpeck’d cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,

Swart-headed mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;—

All ripe together

In summer weather,—

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.”

Extract from the beautifully sinister 'Goblin Market', Christina Rosetti.