Monday, 2 August 2010

Blackberry Dreams

Monday 2nd August


Day 103


Last night’s dream filters into my morning like slow dripping coffee - one image after another. I find myself in a ruined house that we want to buy. It has tall windows and huge rooms full of crouched sofas and a low wall through which the sea seeps in the winter. I say to the vendor who sits at a round table pouring over plans,


‘The trouble is we only have a single sofa. How will we fill these rooms?’


He doesn’t answer - just traces his hand over the wet wall.


Before breakfast I cook the blackberries I picked at the allotment on Saturday. They are an American variety - longer and fatter than our English ones with thorn-less bramble branches. Their juice runs the colour of deep claret wine in the saucepan. Still hot and syrupy I tip them into a glass bowl - lumpy rubies, both tart and sweet - and musty like autumn.


I’ll serve them at lunch tomorrow - ice-cold dark pools swirled into a mound of silky yogurt and scattered with crushed meringues. I think our Japanese friend will approve.

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