Currant affairs

There is a part of me that wishes we hadn't been quite so efficient in our netting of the currant bushes at the allotment.

I like a fruit crumble as much as the next woman, but you can have too much of a good thing. There is an entire drawer in my freezer now filled with boxes of blackcurrants nestling in sugar, in anticipation of tarts and cheesecake; I have jars of jams and jellies lined up on my shelves; I have made cordial (which, incidentally, has given me an  insight into why Ribena is so expensive); and I am mid-way through making a vat of blackcurrant vinegar.  There is the gentle drip-drip-drip of the jelly bag in the front room and the bloop-bloop-bloop of wine fermenting under the stairs. Think of a way to process a currant and I've probably done it.

It looks as though the three or four pounds I still have in the colander will be the last for this year, however. I shall have cleared the fruity decks in time for the courgettes, which are already starting to make their presence felt.