A Seasonal Tale by Judith Skilleter, gin and tonic

Aggie is a preserver who, every year, loves the months of July. August and September. Now don’t get me wrong, Aggie, does not preserve life. She is not one of those brave souls who patrol our beaches during the summer months in order to rescue individuals who get into trouble in the sea. Neither is she part of a mountain rescue service who perform an equally important service on our high peaks. Aggie makes jam and the late summer and early autumn, the season of mellow fruitfulness, (Thank you Mr Keats) is when the fruit she collects is at its brilliant best.

Aggie’s main harvest starts in mid-July with blackberries – or brambles as she likes to call them. She has sources of brambles in her locality, some in public areas and some on private property. Yes, Aggie is prepared to trespass to get her fruit. She is not alone in her hunt for the best brambles but during the season she sets out just after dawn when her fellow Bramblers are still asleep to get the best for that day. And as soon as she has sufficient she  heads for the kitchen to make jams (her current favourite is redcurrant and blackberry), chutneys (blackberry with caramelised onions is delicious), crumbles ( blackberry crumble is lovely but she has to wait for the Bramley apples to ripen before her favourite Bramley and Bramble (Brambley), can be made).

The Bramleys, or cooking apples as her mother knew them as, come in September and October. Aggie has a Bramley tree in her garden and in some years she is lucky to get a dozen decent apples from it. Aggie has no idea why this happens but this year her apple tree’s branches are touching the ground with the weight of the slowing ripening delights. She has never had such a marvellous crop. Already, in August of this year, they are a good size, a very good size, but those who know better than Aggie about Bramley-lore insist that she waits. “They still have growing to do” say these apple experts but Aggie is impatient and before the end of August her first apple crumble of the season has been tried and tested. Yum.

Gooseberries, as well as blackberries, keep Aggie busy while she waits for the apples. She loves the tartness, the sharpness of these green jewels and whatever she makes from them is kept for use over the coming months. There is absolutely no sharing where gooseberries are concerned. Her dinner party dessert during the gooseberry season is a gooseberry fool with home-made shortbread. It is always a success.

Aggie has tried to grow strawberries and raspberries but her success has been limited. One year she just managed a small jar of each – a very disappointing outcome. Aggie is very philosophical about her lack of red soft-fruit success but her success with their blackberry cousins more than makes up for it. Aggie likes the fruit she uses to have developed naturally, with little intervention from her and strawberries and raspberries, along with their associated aphids and worms and those blasted birds, seem too much like hard work and intervention to Aggie.

Then there are plums and pears. These are less easy to pilfer but Aggie’s preserve prowess is well known and occasionally she finds bags full of these delights on her doorstep. Some have notes asking her to use the donated fruit however she likes but to also give some of her produce to a charity of her choice. This Aggie does, but she likes it best when this fruit and note is also accompanied by a bag of jam sugar or even a bottle of pectin. Preserving is not an inexpensive business.

These fruit providers also leave jam jars on her doorstep for which Aggie is very grateful. If Aggie is at home when the doorstep deliveries arrive Aggie thanks these very kind people with a jar or two of freshly made jam – with the request that the empty jars be returned please.

Aggie is married to a delightful man who, when looking for something for his tea, something simple like sausages, finds nothing but frozen bags of fruit. This delightful man bought Aggie a new freezer for her purloined fruit but this new acquisition still does not offer enough freezer space. This delightful man is very patient and knows that by the time Xmas comes along there should be room for meat products in general and a turkey specifically. For a while this delightful man makes do with take-outs – and keeps out of the kitchen where there is usually at least one vat of fruit on the hob.

But the time and space the delightful man has for sharing the freezer with meat is short-lived. Aggie’s preserving instincts are also seen early in the New Year when Seville oranges appear in supermarkets. To his silent relief Aggie has tried and tried with these wondrous fruits but she has never been able to make marmalade as nice as the marmalade she buys in supermarkets, especially the three fruit variety and her output is therefore very limited – for the moment her marmalade is on a very small production line. Nevertheless, Aggie vows to continue her marmalade making with the hope that sometime soon she will make some that she enjoys at least as much as the commercial product. Is it the thickness of peel that is the problem? Is it the fruit mixture that does not blend nicely? Has the fruit not soaked with the sugar for enough time? Aggie is baffled but looks forward to trying again next year.

Of course, Aggie and the delightful man cannot possibly consume the vast amounts of jam that she makes. Most of it is given away- to good causes as well as friends and relatives. In fact when the delightful man goes to their local pub for a swift half his first beer is usually paid for with a jar of jam. The bartering system is alive and well and lives with jam makers.

 

About the author

 Judith Skilleter is new to writing fiction after a long career in social work and teaching. Her first children's novel The April Rebellion, has recently been published. Judith is a Geordie, who settled in East Yorkshire forty-five  years ago and is married with four grandchildren. 

 

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