In which I wonder . . .

There are several themes for blogs jostling for space in my head this morning and I am having great difficulty in making a decision, which will not come as a surprise to anyone who read my blog a few days ago when I was blethering about possibly changing my mobile phone.  I suppose I could always blame my indecision on the weather, after all, it is unseasonably warm and humid today.  I see that the Met Office forecast in the sidebar this morning is predicting 21 degrees for Brighton.  Rubbish!  It's already quite a lot hotter than that.  But then, I don't know just what the Met Office considers is "Brighton".  OK, so the weather stats printed in the Telegraph are not provided by the Met Office (they're from Accuweather) but they frequently fail to coincide with my memory of the weather the previous day.  This morning, the paper says that the high temperature in Brighton yesterday was 22.  The thermometer in my car recorded 27 - and it felt like 30!  I suppose the weather station is in some out of the way place where things are not quite the same as in my part of Brighton.  Anyway, the high today has been predicted at 27 or 28  - but tomorrow it will be all change with a high of just 17 or 18.

I have been busy picking blackberries and we now have quite a good supply in the freezer.  The Old Bat complained that I failed to pick enough last year and I am determined not to fall into the same trap this autumn.  Given that we seem to have a bumper crop I should have no difficulty.  I do like blackberries, especially in pies or crumbles with apples.  In fact, I think that apple pie (or apple crumble) without a few blackberries is like chips (fries) without salt, lacking in flavour.  The Old Bat made an apple crumble earlier this week.  I did offer to pick a few blackberries but she said no, she didn't want any.  Almost criminal to my mind!

I've started picking the apples as well.  I noticed yesterday morning that one or two were ready so in the afternoon the dog and I ventured forth.  The dog does enjoy gardening for some inexplicable reason.  Actually, she can be a real pain the neck when I'm trying to cut something back or dead-head low-growing flowers as she butts her head in and quite often I only just avoid trimming her whiskers with the secateurs.  So I picked half a bucketful of apples that were ready, all on one side of tree.  I'll get down there again at the weekend.  And we had the first dozen or so of our raspberries yesterday.  "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", as the man said.

I may well like blackberries and I also like escargots (snails) but mussles I just can't get on with.  Not so the grandsons, however.  Here they are with an evening meal while at our French retreat a few weeks back.