Thursday 14 October 2010

Is it thieving?

I love this time of year. I love the apples, the pears, the plums, the quinces.... I love the sight of fruit tree branches bent almost to the ground with the weight of their harvest. But it breaks my heart to see such vast quantities of fruit fall to the ground and left to simply rot away, when I would love to give free rein to my squirrelling instinct and collect bags, crates, car loads of nature's bounty and transform it into jams, jellies, chutneys, pies, crumbles...... Yes, I know these trees all belong to somebody but surely if branches overhang the public highway and fruit falls into ditches, then the general public has every right to collect it? I have my eye on a quince tree right now and the fruit is reaching optimum ripeness - I fear I may not be able to harness my urge to go fill those bags for much longer!!

On another note, the colours are really starting to turn down here now, with the bracken finally turning that wonderful deep russet brown and the dull green leaves at last giving way to warmer shades of yellow, orange and red. Autumn really is a stunning time of year in the Ariege

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