feminish

It was breezy today, and I my belly was striking its monthly pang. Not a day for thoughts and decisions.

So The Patterner and I decided to abandon Work in favour of Jam-Making.

We quit the studio and glided across the valley by bike in search of Bionic Woman, the lithe, muscular, deeply tanned and shy human soul - more earth than woman, truth be told - who manifests organic fruit and vegetables from the soil.

This week is reine claude week. There’s only one. Within a couple of days they’ll be soggy and overripe - but just now they are perfect and very wet. I’m amazed that even in this dog-heat drought the struggling trees still offer us - who have taps and showers and feet to walk to the riverbank - such incredibly wet plums.

Bionic Woman gave us twice as many reines as we had money for, and let us graze them as she jostled with the metal hook and runner that served as her approximate-to-the-nearest-kilogram scales. If our jam didn’t work out, she said, we could have some of hers.

I’m not sure why I submit myself to the frazzling ritual of boiling up stupendous quantities of fruit with unhealthy quantities of sugar. (Re-emptying jars and re-boiling Seville marmalade for the third time at 3 in the morning the night before my political TV show went out live is but one of many pained memories.)

I think I do it partly because I’m obsessed with tea and breakfast (it being the Most Important Meal of the Day); by extension I’m therefore obsessed with toast and things to put on it. It’s partly because as a one-time non-eater my mind is fascinated by intensely rich foods. And it’s partly because I have a fetish for connecting with women’s old-time diligent forethought. There are Seville oranges in February, but not for any of the other 11 months. There are reines claudes this week but there won’t be next. So chop and soak and boil and pot “we must”.

Normally I hate the echoes of women’s ‘musts’ through the centuries: that I must always have clean nails or must never leave the house with wet hair (though I do now have a mantra: ‘a girl must carry her Leatherwoman at all times’). But somehow it makes me happy to respect the musts of nature. Here the trees are, pouring forth their generosity and it feels good to do justice by them; to accept their fruit in gratitude and invest a few hours of attention and slog to ensure they last beyond next week. It’s a humbling rite - I’ll never be able to create a reine claude and yet if I’m not careful I can squish one, spill it or burn it.

It was breezy today, and I my belly was striking its monthly pang. Not a day for thoughts and decisions.

So The Patterner and I decided to abandon Work in favour of Jam-Making.

We quit the studio and glided across the valley by bike in search of Bionic Woman, the lithe, muscular, deeply tanned and shy human soul - more earth than woman, truth be told - who manifests organic fruit and vegetables from the soil.

This week is reine claude week. There’s only one. Within a couple of days they’ll be soggy and overripe - but just now they are perfect and very wet. I’m amazed that even in this dog-heat drought the struggling trees still offer us - who have taps and showers and feet to walk to the riverbank - such incredibly wet plums.

Bionic Woman gave us twice as many reines as we had money for, and let us graze them as she jostled with the metal hook and runner that served as her approximate-to-the-nearest-kilogram scales. If our jam didn’t work out, she said, we could have some of hers.

I’m not sure why I submit myself to the frazzling ritual of boiling up stupendous quantities of fruit with unhealthy quantities of sugar. (Re-emptying jars and re-boiling Seville marmalade for the third time at 3 in the morning the night before my political TV show went out live is but one of many pained memories.)

I think I do it partly because I’m obsessed with tea and breakfast (it being the Most Important Meal of the Day); by extension I’m therefore obsessed with toast and things to put on it. It’s partly because as a one-time non-eater my mind is fascinated by intensely rich foods. And it’s partly because I have a fetish for connecting with women’s old-time diligent forethought. There are Seville oranges in February, but not for any of the other 11 months. There are reines claudes this week but there won’t be next. So chop and soak and boil and pot “we must”.

Normally I hate the echoes of women’s ‘musts’ through the centuries: that I must always have clean nails or must never leave the house with wet hair (though I do now have a mantra: ‘a girl must carry her Leatherwoman at all times’). But somehow it makes me happy to respect the musts of nature. Here the trees are, pouring forth their generosity and it feels good to do justice by them; to accept their fruit in gratitude and invest a few hours of attention and slog to ensure they last beyond next week. It’s a humbling rite - I’ll never be able to create a reine claude and yet if I’m not careful I can squish one, spill it or burn it.