I made strawberry jam this evening. It’s just now cooled enough to sample, and it’s wonderful. It’s set just enough to resist the knife, but loose enough to close back over the hole in the jar when you’re done. It’s such a lurid colour that I’d have assumed food colouring was involved somehow, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’d made it myself exclusively from fruit and pectin-enhanced sugar.

The initial plan was actually to make bramble jelly, but I didn’t find any blackberries. I drove almost to Leicestershire, found a layby and footpath, but no accessible berries. This is frustrating. There must be thousands of blackberries nearer here than that going unpicked. I just don’t know where to look. More frustrating still is that from my house, I can see brambles heavy with fruit, but they’re in a private garden I can’t get into.

I suspect even getting free fruit (which I didn’t with the strawberries) it’s going to be difficult to make jam for less money than it costs to buy. But it tastes good 🙂