Earth at Work

Earlier this week I found  Three Beautiful Things, a blog with a glorious economy of words written by Clare Grant, who believes that the most beautiful things are often the smallest things.

In the same spirit, I offer two beautiful things this morning, not too bad considering it’s barely 1pm and I’ve not yet ventured from the house.

1) Toasted crumpets, with the Hampstead Heath blackberry jam I made some weeks ago, for breakfast.  To make the  jam you’ll need a pound of white sugar for a pound of fruit.  Put it all into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the juice of a lemon or two (important this, the lemon will help it set) and bring to a rolling boil, skimming  off the resultant scum periodically.

Larousse, the grandfather of Western cookery, says jam will set and is ready to bottle when the temperature reaches 104 degrees centigrade.  I am amazed that it is such a precise number – how many jars of jam did he make before he reached that figure?  If you don’t have a thermometer – I don’t – put a little jam on a cold saucer and see if it sets. It’s a bit of a gamble this way but much more fun. For watery fruits like cherries and blackberries,  it may help to cook and reduce them a little before adding the sugar; you can always add more water if you need to.  Sterilise jars by washing them and drying them in a hot oven.  Here’s a picture of the dregs that weren’t enough to fill a jar:

2) Sheets hanging on the line to dry. Several things here, in fact:  the sun shining on the linen itself; the faint, pleasing scent of washing in the garden; the singular pleasure of easing into a bed made with linen smelling of wind and sun.

A new season is on its way. I dare not say it’s name.  Yesterday evening I looked at the sky above Primrose Hill and saw the light had changed. Something has shifted.

In the garden, the leaves on the old pear tree sound crisper than they did last week. The roses are two feet  above the garden wall and their last flowers are far beyond the reach of my snippy secateurs.  The flowers on the lavender have almost gone.  We’ve given the ill-disciplined bay topiary a short back and sides.

If I bounce high enough on the trampoline in the garden, enough to wobble a little in mid-air,  I can see apples ripening on a tree  two houses down.  In Regent’s Park yesterday there were neat clusters of elderberries here and there, and the sun shone low and golden across the green.  On Hampstead Heath where I gathered enough blackberries  to make four bottles of jam a few weeks ago, the leaves are just starting to turn.

How many sunny days have we left this year? I can’t bear to count. I resolve instead to wear summer skirts for as long as possible, to spend the weekends outdoors, to wake with the light before it disappears.