AUTUMN’s unfurling into winter means letting go, of watching the leaves shed their summer coats. But for a short time the abundance of the season is held in the ditches as the blackberries ripen.
Maybe what sends me out to pick them is some deep hunter gatherer instinct. Or maybe it’s the memory of autumns gone by and the juiciness of childhood nostalgia held in these black knots of deliciousness.
These little berries soften the blow of the swallows leaving. They are bites of sun-warmed sweetness to fend off the dawning realisation that soon it will be time to draw the curtains and light the fire against the dark chill of winter.
But there’s something I savour more than the taste of the fruits themselves; the day that my mother and I go on our annual expedition to gather them. We never venture far from home – there are rich pickings literally on our door steps.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be much discussion about the trip. We only embark on it once my mother has done a thorough reconnaissance mission of the local lanes and backroads. She designates the spot and together will decide the day. For some reason she always declares it a ‘bumper year’ for the crop.
Even as I feel the year ebbing away and the gnawing of my own heart at time’s relentless march, like the dragonfly who only has one day of blessed summer to soar, I give myself over completely to the art of blackberry picking.
I have a vivid memory of the nature table in primary school. Because most of us walked to school, children dropped their treasures on it as they came into the classroom. A snail’s iridescent shell, an acorn, the spiky outer husk of a conker and blackberries, somewhat squashed at being held in a child’s warm hand. The blackberry picker would be easily identified by the tell-tale stains which would remain on their hand or the rest of the school day.
Now the honey-suckle lines the edges of the roads, its petals dripping down over the ditches like elegant scarlet ballerinas. Clustered among them, in between the ferns and nettles and ragwort are the ripe, juicy and inky treasures we seek.
The words of Seamus Heaney, from his much loved poem Blackberry-Picking, spring to my mind as I scour and gather. “You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking”.
Some branches yield their fruit easily and soon the bottom of my container is covered. Others do not give up their bounty so readily and if I’m not careful the thick, thorny limb of a briar will reach out to remind me that this is their territory, that I am greedy, that I need to slow down and be patient.
As my mother and I talk, I am conscious of trying to hold the fruits of these conversations with the same care as I fill my pot full of blackberries. Stories of the way her mother would pick berries or how to make sure you know the exact setting point of jam punctuate the delicious silences.
The years slip by and I am a girl once more looking up to my mother with her seemingly limitless knowledge of the world of ditches and berries and all the things that grow.
We always laugh at my constant over reaching and she cautions me against precariously balancing on a high ditch. I become again the girl who managed to catch every single dress on briars and tear holes in the clothes she sent me out in.
All too soon our containers are full and we call it a day bringing our cache home to wash, eat and store. Sometimes I cook up a batch with a little honey and sugar to freeze for barren winter mornings when I want the taste of nature’s plenty. Sometimes I even set myself the ambitious task of making jam. It hasn’t turned out too badly in the past.
But these after occurrences are not the point. Nothing comes close to reaching out and tugging a berry from a branch, hearing the soft and satisfying thud as it falls on the others and seeing my container fill with the blackness of jewelled fruits.
The time spent with my mother as we work our way steadily along a stretch of road, looking for a clutch of rich blackberries is a reminder that the best things in life are free if we stop and take the time to savour them. A small hand-picked harvest becomes a rich memory store.