August is a strange month, and one that in its own way proves the theory that time is relative and moves at different speeds. At this time of the year, it slows right down and August seems to go on for ever. It even seems like that in the Church calendar with what feel like umpteen Sundays after Trinity. The weekend before last, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went out and picked some blackberries. There are masses growing near us on a road with a wide verge adjacent to one of our local parks, and backing onto farmland. After an hour, we'd filled all our Tupperware boxes and came home with about 10 lb. I made a couple of nice crumbles and took one round to our friend Paula. There was still plenty left so we made lots of jam and I attach a picture of the pots all labelled up. During the year, we save our glass jars for things like coffee, sauces, honey and so on and store them in the utility room so we usually have a good supply ready for any forays into preserving. Picking blackberries and jam making are both activities which seem to stretch seamlessly back to childhood. Relaxing, pleasureable and full of the recognisable and familiar - the purple stained fingers, bramble scratches on the legs (no matter how thick your jeans!), careful avoidance of spiders, the stretching for the large berries JUST out of reach, the enjoyably carefree feeling of the sun on your back and the delicious earthy, sweet smell of the fruit. While we were out, we also spied some fine sloes, so may return for those to make some sloe gin, as we have done in previous years. Making the jam was great fun, filling the house with luscious, sweet smells, and then pouring the molten, glossy liquid into the waiting jars. There's something disproportionately satisfying about seeing the jars cooling and lined up, waiting for their labels.

This weekend just past, we saw my lovely great aunt down in Swansea on Saturday. As usual, we went for lunch to her favourite carvery, and caught up with all her news, of which there was plenty as she is a lady with a wide social circle and lots of (great)nieces and nephews. In fact, she even has a great-great niece. Anyway, she was full of holiday plans and her usual self, so the time flew by, before we had to leave to get back to the dogs. As it was a very wet, rainy day, (not very summery) she had on her raincap, to avoid her newly done hair getting wet and going frizzy. I sympathised, as although mine is manageably short at the moment, once it gets long, rain or high humidity seems to induce some sort of kink and it becomes a nightmare.

On Sunday, we decided to make a quick foray into Lakeland for a top-up of things like waxed discs for jam/chutney making, labels and so on. I bought a new jam funnel, as we were getting tired of juggling molten liquid into the pots, along with some cake cases and some silicon heart shaped muffin moulds. Up to now, the silicon revolution in bakeware has passed me by - I now see a lot of it in places like Lakeland but have not tried it and don't know anyone who has. If any of my readers are silicon converts I'd love to hear about its relative merits for ease of use, even baking and of course ease of cleaning. I will report back on the muffin tins when I have experimented. We also did a quick dive into Paperchase for me to have a stationery fix (yes, I am a notebook junkie!) and popped in to John Lewis as Andrew wanted to look at teapots. As usual, I never cease to marvel at the amazingly genuine and helpful assistants in there - they should be giving classes to so many other retailers on how to get this right.

Today has been a quiet and peaceful day, with a lot of heavy showers and a blustery west wind. I dropped off Andrew at the station first thing and we had our customary walk down at Hamadryad Park, admiring the most wonderful rainbow in the sky, that just glowed gorgeously and looked almost close enough to touch. I've made another batch today of spiced mango chutney in the slow cooker and there are now four lovely jars of it cooling in the kitchen. I'm hoping to do a few batches of chutney now and in September so they will be ready for eating/giving at Christmas. When we were making the blackberry and apple jam, I made two batches, one in the slow cooker and one on top of the stove. I wasn't so happy with the slow cooker for the jam, it seemed to give a softer, runnier consistency so will stick to the open pan for jams in future. However, the mango chutney has worked well in the enclosed cooker - it's interesting to experiment with these differing cooking methods. If the weather improves this week, Paula and I are thinking of going to pick some plums at our nearby fruit farm and then I will make some plum jam and possibly some plum chutney. Watch this space.