The dogs and I went out to pick blackberries this morning.
With hindsight this was a shockingly misjudged project.
It had seemed like a good idea . In the spirit of being old and creaky I had thought that I would do a bit of vigorous jogging about one day, followed by some gentler exercise the day after, and hence today I was allowed just to have a walk. Also I was tired this morning, having nobly volunteered to sit outside the nightclub for the last couple of hours whilst Mark went home to bed.
It was a good job that he did, because the nightclub was so lacking in popularity last night that the bar closed at three and the bouncers were locking the door behind the last customer at two minutes past.
I had a good book, so I didn’t much mind, and some Extra Strong Mints, which are a taxi driver’s secret late-night staying awake weapon. Between the sugar buzz and being minty enough to make your mouth hurt a bit, they are handy in sleepy emergencies.
Not falling asleep is hardest when you have got four people in the car, and it is raining and cold enough to oblige you to keep all of the windows shut. The car fills with everybody’s warm wet breath, and if you are already sleepy you are lost.
Fortunately my last customers were so rude and irritating that the subsequent argument about whether or not they might pay the fare meant I was not only wide awake, but charged with adrenalin, so I tore home with some speed and was showered and ready for bed in no time.
They did pay the fare, just so you know, albeit with bad grace and mostly because they were kitchen staff, and thought that I would ring their hotel manager and complain, which I would have done.
All the same, it was almost four before I crept into bed, and I did not feel terribly energetic and bouncing with life when the rural broadband alarm went off at half past seven.
Mark went to work and I took the dogs off up the fell.
It is the time of year where you come back from every walk with your pockets full. Mark has been coming home from rural broadbanding with damsons and hazelnuts and blackberries harvested in his lunch hour.
I am going to make the damsons into damson gin later on this week, when I have purchased some gin, and have put them in the freezer ready. This is because I have learned from the BBC recipe site that you do not have to faff about pricking damsons with a fork before you put them into the gin. Freeze them and then put them in a plastic bag and bash them with a rolling pin. Then chuck the whole lot into the jar.
I thought this was an inspired idea, and it has gone some small way towards restoring the BBC in my eyes now that John Humphrys has gone. They might be horribly biased about Donald Trump and leaving the EU, but they should not be written off just yet. They may still have something of value to contribute to the world.
Anyway, we ambled off up the fell side, and we had hardly gone a mile before it started to rain.
I had brought a bag for blackberries and everything, and I was not going to be put off.
We carried on.
It really rained then, the sort of great heavy drops that hurtle downwards and splash about four inches back off the ground again. The world went dark and the birds went quiet and the rain hammered down around me.
I found some blackberry bushes and filled my bag.
Do not believe the sort of whole-earth hippy eco inner tranquillity twitterings that you read with dreamy sunset pictures on Facebook. Picking blackberries is not at all therapeutic.
After a while I was drenched to the skin. Cold little rivers ran through my underwear. Thorns protruded from all of my fingers, and every bit of exposed skin had had some kind of close encounter with stinging nettles. My hands were purple and my jacket had a new hole in it, and I had to keep stopping to shout at Roger Poopy, who was charging about chasing birds whilst his father stood mournfully by and contemplated the further injustices of his life.
When I got home I looked as though I had been confused when I got up, and done the shower-and-get-dressed thing the wrong way round.
I had three pounds of blackberries, though.
I celebrated with blackberry porridge for breakfast.
