I picked over 1 lb of blackberries yesterday just along the Great Central Way, and I shall go out again today. It looks like being a good year, especially if we have a couple of weeks of sun as that is what blackberries need – lots of rain and lots of sun. I love blackberries but most of these will go into a batch of wine: however I have plans for stewed blackberries with sugar and possibly crumble and custard.
It’s Ramadan at the moment: I asked people on Facebook if they were fasting and one woman said her in-laws don’t even go swimming in case some water gets into their mouth. There’s dedication… I could probably just about handle abstaining from food, but I couldn’t cope with not drinking either. I don’t know how they do it.
I wonder how many people are fasting where Holly is? Not many, I suspect. She seems to be enjoying Kemer. According to Mark, the name is Turkish for ‘chimaera’ (I pronounce it ‘shim-era’ whereas it should probably be ‘ky-meera’) which as we all know is Greek for a mythical beast that is a mixture of –
– actually it’s more like –
– oh sod it, here’s a link:
And! According to Mark who is of course the fount of all knowledge, there may be a new series of ‘Red Dwarf’, starring the same actors. Although, as I pointed out, none of them was originally an actor: Chris Barrie was an impressionist who worked on ‘Spitting Image’; Craig Charles was a performance poet and Danny John-Jules was –
er –
– oh sod it, here’s a link:
http://www.tv.com/shows/red-dwarf/cast/
Mark mentioned the Anti-Santa this morning. No, this is not an excuse to tell you how many shopping days (or days of any persuasion) there are until Christmas – but I do rather like the idea of the Anti-Santa: it’s a bloke dressed in black and blue who comes up through your cellar in the night and takes stuff away from your house.
AKA a burglar, now I come to think of it…
I promise never to remind you at any point how many days there are until Christmas – in fact the festival might well come upon you unawares if you are relying on me. I can’t stand the kind of ‘looking forward’ we are always subject to in the media and elsewhere. It’s almost as bad as the instant ‘looking back’: talking about memories as though they were some kind of trophy on a shelf. The worst example of this I can remember was the Atlanta Olympic Games, some time in the ’80’s. The very second that the closing ceremony ended, a deep, smug male voice boomed out over the whole arena, saying:
‘The Games are over. Now the memories begin.’
Mm. Perhaps he had ‘arenability’.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 