Mulberries, cabbage whites, Brian Setzer's quiff and a superb cranachan
Monday 12 August 2024
I am sat on the sofa, bifolds open, Night/Day playing low, the dog occasionally slinking his trying-it-on way towards a corner around which I cannot see him, the weather shifting between overcast with a breezy hint of October, and glorious August sunshine. Right now, the lightest of glittery drizzles is falling. And as I reach the end of the word ‘falling’, the sun picks out the sparkle for a moment and the drizzle is gone. The wind seems to know when the rain stops, picking up again as the sun lights up everything.
A thistle has taken its chance, finding a gap in the sea of chocolate mint; the breeze lifts fluffy clocks from it - like the skeletons of bubbles - into the air, many holding hands in pairs.
Cabbage whites flap about as if being worked by amateur puppeteers - graceless yet beautiful - threatening to land here and there, but doing so only rarely, wings closed, in two dimensions. They do a loop or two of our garden then off to a neighbour’s before returning a few minutes later to repeat the circus.
I’m not in the least fussed. You can lose years mithering yourself about potential nuisances to come and miss how beautiful they are right now, right here. The cabbage whites sniff the brassicas; if they stop, I rarely see them as they lay eggs on the underside of leaves to be more hidden from view. It’s a nuisance, but I’m perfectly happy to check once in a while for caterpillars, as nothing shall come between me and my nine star broccoli.
The Pakistan mulberry is without fruit this year - a shame, as the berries are particularly long and juicy, the flavour exceptional - but the sight of its leaves are partial compensation1, shaped as they are like Morea (now the Peloponnese) in Greece where they also grow abundantly, hence mulberry’s genus, Morus. Our white mulberry has a few fruit, and if the blackbirds have an appointment elsewhere, we get to enjoy them.
Below, more words plus a recipe for Mulberry cranachan and Mulberry martini