Blackberry Picking

Hello everyone!

I'm very lucky to live where I do in the beautiful Irish countryside. 

It can sometimes be a nuisance if I need to go somewhere because I'm quite far out and public transport is minimal. Thank goodness for internet shopping! Sometimes I fantasise about what it might be like to live in a big city like London but I know I'd never be able to stay there permanently. I'd always have to come back to live where it's green and open. One massive perk of living in the country is being able to go for walks in the fresh air with beautiful landscapes in sight. Yesterday morning, I awoke at half seven and my parents and I went for a lovely walk near to our home. 

Armed with an empty ice cream tub, we went hunting for blackberries - Seamus Heaney style. I'm going to let the photos do most of the talking and leave you with the poem Seamus wrote back in the day!


thrift o'clock






BLACKBERRY PICKING

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
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. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney

give him a name in the comments!




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For dessert last night we had vanilla icecream, marshmallows and warmed blackberries and for breakfast this morning I had blackberries in my granola! Absolutely delicious.


Have you ever been blackberry picking?

Do you like countryside walks?



Thanks for reading,
Maeve
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