Summer delights

Yesterday I stumbled across a farm shop selling small punnets of summer soft-fruits for £1 a punnet. Some of the punnets were loganberries - wow! I haven't tasted them since I was a child, when we had loganberries growing in our garden. They were beautifully juicy and ripe and tasted amazing. Eating them brought back lovely memories to make me grin too.

You see, when I was a kid we had to fence off the produce area in our garden to prevent our wee mutt from getting in.

(I don't have a photo but he looked a little like this huggable hairy happening)

Ah, furry little thief that he was! Once he'd found his way in, and he was very adept at finding new ways, he'd happily pull off every scrap of ripe fruit from anything he could, stubby tail going nineteen to the dozen as he enjoyed (quite literally) the fruits of our labours. A dog that started the day white(ish) could quite happily be pinky-purple around the muzzle by the end of it. Yes, we were the proud (?) owners of a wannabe fruitarian mutt!

His particular favourites were the sweeter fruits - strawberries, loganberries and raspberries (and he loved trips to pick blackberries and whimberries), but he'd even have a go at the gooseberry bushes now and again. Most frustrating to see the berries begin to colour nicely, wait just another day or so in anticipation, then get there to find the dog had been at them first! The only thing safe from him was rhubarb and blackcurrants, which he hated, and apples, which were too high off the ground to reach.

He was also a brilliant ratter and an inveterate egg thief. For very good reason we didn't keep our chickens for too long once he'd joined the household. If he'd ever found a way in there... oooh!

Anyway, this time I had a whole punnet of luscious loganberries to myself for lunch. They were heavenly. Hmmm, now if they still have some on sale today...