Food for free

We've been busy these past few days picking raspberries which the Doyenne has made into raspberry jam. The kitchen fills with the "moreish" smell of the boiling fruit which permeates through the house and moistens the taste buds. We don't use a great deal of jam ourselves but as soon as the family know that the new season's offering is on the store cupboard shelves they descend like vultures! It's also such a good present for hostesses who invite us for dinner - much more personal than a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates.

Gooseberries will soon be ripe. The dogs and I pass two bushes in a beech hedge every morning which are probably escapees from a garden - so they are what you might call semi-feral. Some time, a long time ago, a bird has eaten a cultivated garden gooseberry, and several of the seeds passing through its system have popped out the other end in the way these things do, and have self seeded in the wild. Very versatile fruit are gooseberries.

Wild raspberries are just about ready for picking too. The Doyenne makes the most delicious jelly from these, and I make raspberry vodka. If everything ripens at once, this week may be even busier than I expected.