Foraging

We went out for walk, our usual walk, up our lane to where it turns to a rough track and up further to the ridge with the huge view over the Vale of Clwyd towards Snowdonia. It's a walk of about half an hour each way and I am trying to make it my run. So far I haven't yet managed to run up in one run, two or three minutes with a minute or so of walking in between is all I can manage going upwards. But yesterday I managed to run all the way down. I might have been short of breath and challenging a beetroot for colour, but I did it, and for the first time in the three weeks of trying to run, caught just a glimpse of why people might run for pleasure. There were just moments when the track disappeared smoothly beneath my feet and the wind blew cool on my hot face and the sheep looked up in mild surprise when I thought I could perhaps get to like this. Running, especially failing to run uphill, gives me the only possible reason for wishing I didn't live on a hill. But I would then not have my view.

But we weren't running the other night. We were walking when we saw a whole swathe of grass verge glistening red and gold. They were bullaces, wild plums, prunus institia.

We didn't have a bag so Ian took his blue working jumper off, with the one or two tiny moth holes in the front, and we laid it flat on the ground and covered it with plums. It took a bit of experimenting to work out how to turn it into something we could carry up the hill, without scattering plums behind us as we went. Eventually Ian managed it and we carried on walking.

By the time we got to the top of the hill the light was going. The sun hung low and red and the vale was full of dusk. Far down the vale to the north the sea still held the light in a silver gleam against the horizon.

The plums made a huge plum crumble which we are still eating. We must go down to the Pwll Gwyn woods and see if there are damsons in the quantities we picked last year. The damson jam was gone a couple of months ago and the last jar of the thicker, stiffer damson cheese to have with cheese and biscuits went to Blackden on Saturday.