There's a really lovely little wood near to where I live. It's right in the centre of the city, but completely secluded - you can barely tell that you're surrounded by houses (unless it's lunch time at the local secondary school). Last spring/early summer, I went on walks around the wood everyday as a break from the stress of revision. It kept me sane! One day I even went out and sat in the wood during torrential rain.
When I came back up to University during the summer (for a placement), I decided to show one of my best friends around it - imagine my delight when I found bramble bushes dripping with unripe brambles which I estimated would be ready when term started. Lo and behold, most of them are now wonderfully ripe. Today on my walk, I managed to collect two boxes full within an hour, and that's with tons of completely unripe brambles left on the bushes. I think that a weekly brambling trip'll be required!
I'm planning on making plenty of bramble pies and bramble & apple crumbles for my house mates (lucky them). Though it'll be on the condition that they accept that, up here in the north, we call them brambles, not blackberries. I'm also hoping to try out Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Blackberry Gin Fizz, because everything can be made even more awesome by gin. To quote by best friend: 'I'm not an alcoholic, I just like gin'.
V x
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