Plum Crazy

Monday August 23rd

Day 124

Eleven jars of plum jam are lined up on the kitchen counter - long pale ovals of fruit suspended in a glistening rose pink sunset - waiting for their labels. In the oven two trays of stoned and halved plums are roasting in honey, speckled with the scraped seeds of vanilla pods, black as ants.

All afternoon Beethoven’s symphonies swirl through the kitchen and out into the garden where sun and wind, dark clouds and blue sky perform an unpredictable dance routine. I’m in a race to slice and cook this bounty of Victoria plums before they ripen too far and the tiny fruit flies start to hover.

Much later, when my feet want to sit down, my husband comes back from the allotment with a delicate bunch of sweet peas, scarlet dahlias and open faced marigolds, some tomatoes - red this time - and a handful of green beans. And a bulging bag of plums. Maybe this is a race I can’t win tonight.