Determined that today I would begin the jam making season I was “up betimes” and off to the supermarket for a few essentials. I have a birthday cake to make this week and I needed some special chocolate and some Belgian truffles, more about this another time.
By the time I returned Pa was ready for his breakfast which today was hot buttered crumpets and muffins with honey. He had managed to lay the table for breakfast himself and it looked very nice and neat, he even remembered the glasses, I was so pleased as I needed to be quick.
With breakfast over and the dishes washed and dried I was in the garden by noon armed with a pair of hitch gloves, a pair of secateurs and a very large bowl for the gooseberries. The actual making of gooseberry jam is easy, it is in fact the easiest to make of all jams,as it sets with very little trouble ,as long as the fruit is not too ripe, the difficult and rather painful part is picking the blessed things.
Gooseberries protect themselves from the likes of me with a multitude of long sharp thorns. Moreover these thorns have the habit of breaking off as they puncture the skin leaving a nasty almost invisible tip buried in your flesh. My experience of these little horrors is that no amount of poking about with a sterile needle will shift them and so unless I get one in a really inconvenient place I leave them until they begin to festers a little and then they pop out quite readily. This is not so nasty as it sounds and it is a lot less painful that the needles and tweezers!
Once the fruit is picked, and I picked four pounds today, it is necessary to remove the tops and tails, these being the stalk and the remains of the flower, this takes forever! Usually I do not mind this job as it is nice to snip away while the mind wanders where it will, today however I was against the clock and was inclined to say a rude word to every single gooseberry, especially those which rolled across the floor to be chased by the cat and slipped upon by unwary visitors.
When at last the fruit was in the pan, the jars sterilising in the oven and the lids scalded and dried I made Pa and I a cup of coffee and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Soon the jam was ready, as I mentioned before setting point is reached quite quick;y with green gooseberry jam and I poured it quickly in to the hot jars. eleven in total. Hot gooseberry jam smells delectable and pervades to whole ground floor of the house with he scent of blissful stickiness , the jars looked lovely and glowed in the light from the kitchen window.
With the days business done Pa and I had dinner, nothing particular, just some scampi, salad and chips with my special lemon sauce, very quick and making few dirty dishes. Cleaning up after making jam is the worst part of the whole job, no matter how careful you are you will always find a sticky patch hours later and in an inconvenient spot. I have promised Pa that he can have some of the new jam for breakfast tomorrow on toasted oven bottom muffins. Gooseberry jam keeps for over a year but it tastes really wonderful when it is newly made.
Today is my sons last day on Sark and he has spent the day walking on the west side of the island. This holiday has given him a taste for island life and I think he will be visiting other islands very soon. My son and I share a love of solitude, we both like people but we need to be by ourselves as often as possible. I would not say that a dessert island would be my ideal but should I ever find myself stranded on one of them I should not be too concerned about the lack of company.
We are looking forward to having our son at home again and to listen to is travellers tales, always so entertaining, just now though all I really want is a great big hug.
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