Life is a bowl of cherries

Strawberries are many people’s idea of summer, but to me it’s cherries. After all, you can buy strawberries at any time of the year, maybe not the succulent Scottish strawberries from Perthshire and Angus, but imported ones from warmer climes. However I never see cherries other than in the summer. I bought these beauties for £1 at a local fruit shop which I considered a bargain and blipped them at once as I knew they would never last intact for long.

My love affair with cherries started when I was very young , maybe 6 or 7, just after the war finished when fruit other than apples seemed impossible to come by, (although I do remember getting oranges, each one wrapped in tissue paper with the grower’s emblem printed on it. That might also have been after the war).
At that time, I used to play in the back green with a little friend, and the lady in the flat above used to throw down cherries for us to eat. This was definitely an upmarket version of the ‘Jeely piece’ so beloved of the comedian Billy Connolly.

Finally this morning’s haar has burned back, leaving a beautiful afternoon with the chance to sit outside and read........... and gorge on cherries.