The things we do

The sodden July may have been unpleasant, but it brought with it an exceptional, and early, bounty of fruit. I even had a ripe fig land at my feet the other day, something I have never seen in these parts before.

Fruit, of course, means foraging. It may be deeply fashionable now, but for some of us foraging is a way of life. I have done so since I was a child - when we would set out, industrious as machines, and return with a year's worth of blackberries - and have never found a reason to stop.

So last weekend I set out, with baskets and a brother in tow, to the mysterious wilds of Crouch End, to make the most of this bounty. I know of a secret stand of Damson trees that way, which hang heavy with their dusky little fruit at the best of times. This year they were incredible. Little else would drag my into that zone.

From there we headed to the field for more. Foragers had already beat paths deep into the brambles, but they had ignored the sloes.

The field is strange, and hangs heavy with Crouch End's emotional desolation. A dreary American ran loops around it, stopping only to execute vigorous plyometrics. A listless kid wandered near the bushes, shouting plaintive calls of 'Chester, Chester' to his lacklustre dog. The whole atmosphere was puntuated by the strangled wails of a teenage Thrash band practicing in the nearby school gym. Like I said, strange.

There we passed an elderly Italian couple, with buckets of blackberries and a home-made hoicking stick. We dropped only a scant nod in passing - foragers are always deeply suspicious of other parties - knowing that they may be secreting the location of an even greater crop.
With clothes stained and baskets heavy with blackberries, damsons, sloes and elderberries, we returned (via the pub, of course). Rounding the corner near home, I spotted a vast spatter of purple pigeon droppings on the pavement.

"That pigeon has been gorging itself on elderberries", I observed.
And there, just round the corner, was the heaviest elderberry crop I have seen anywhere. The tree was literally dripping with fruit. I would have pulled a few down - had I brought with me a ladder. The best fruit are inevitably the hardest to reach.

Left to right - elderberry liqueur, blackberry compote, damson gin, damson chutney, sloe gin