To be perfectly honest, I had no intention of doing much more than minimal cooking today. I certainly had no intention of making jam. Not that I’m against making jam. I love making jam. At least, I love the thought of making jam. It seems such a domestic goddess thing to do. And we don’t actually eat much jam in our house, so all those lovely hand labelled jars sit on my shelves for ages, bathing me in their halo of domesticity. Also there’s the added option of giving away lovely little domestic goddess gifts of quaintly bottled homemade jam, made by yours truly. Guaranteed to impress. Well why wouldn’t it? I mean who actually makes jam. Apart from me. It’s just that…well, why don’t I ever remember what it’s like?Not the jam making, because that in itself is easy, but how everything turns out. I’m rambling now, but that’s just what kind of a day it’s been. You see, what I always forget is that any day that I decide to make jam turns out to be one of those days. One of what days? One of these days:

10:30 am ring ring…who could possibly be calling at the crack of dawn…ignore it…ring ring…no better answer, it could be Dakota…’ lo…asleep? no, of course I’m up…a cake? sure..pears from the orchard…fine..I’ll see you in 15 minutes.
Oh my word, look at the time. Good thing I never told her how rude it is to phone people at the crack of dawn requesting cakes for lunch. Particularly since she’s had my child along with 7 others sleeping over (next door), and she probably has been up since the crack of dawn.

15 minutes turns into 45, but I do eventually stagger next door, fuelled with several cups of espresso. The kids have been up since 7.00am and are starting to go a little wild.

‘Right, lets make a blackberry and pear cake, and if you all put your wellies on we can go and pick blackberries.’ By the time, everyone has on two wellies from a matching pair, I’ve rescued the cat from being locked in the doll’s house and everyone’s ready to go, they all decide they’re starving and they can’t wait until lunch.

‘Okay, you get your bikes out and I’ll get a snack.’ I butter some banana bread doorstops, pile them onto a plate and rush outside to feed the poor little mites before they perish, only they’re not there.Plate in hand I wander up to the kitchen garden with the sole remaining child, a 4 year old, only to find them eating blackberries instead. Good thing the bushes are absolutely groaning with berries then. I ask to see how many they’ve collected. Zero, zip, nada…’there’s nothing to put them in so we’ve just eaten them all.’ If it wasn’t for the purple smudges all over their faces, I’d barely have noticed. Okay, so no one’s remembered to bring a bowl. No problem, I stop to see if we can get one from the gardener, and by the time we’ve had a chat, he’s had some banana bread and we’ve chased Peter Rabbit out of the cabbages, 5 children seem to have scaled the six foot garden wall and are playing follow the leader along the top. Did I say six foot? Seems more like eight or nine. Gosh, I hope they’re all as good at climbing as Dakota. Whew! I relax, as they all scramble down the gate in quick succession and wander off to look for wasps nests. I’m sure that’s much safer.

Mindful of lunch, the pears and my neighbour waiting I manage to gather some blackberries and raspberries. Ouch, damn stinging nettles. How does that dog pick blackberries without getting scratched to pieces?

I take a different path back to the house, past the damson tree. Everything seems to have ripened at once and the fruit bowls are brimming with apples, pears, plums and even some figs. The damsons too, are begging to be picked and I can’t resist. I trail around the tree and pick what I can reach, only realising once I’m done, just how many I’ve picked. Well, I can’t bear to see them rot so we’ll just have to make jam.

Back at the house I put the damsons on to boil while I start getting the cake ready. Only, I seem to have picked rather a lot and I’m not sure I have 5 kilos of sugar. It’ll have to be 3 kilos, that’s all I can find. Working quickly now I wash the fruit, toss it in the maslin pan, add the water and sling it on the aga. Oh, dear, the aga is cold. Of course, it was turned off while they were away and is not yet warmed up. We’ll have to do it on the other stove. The one that we’re cooking the lunch on and that the super aga size maslin pan doesn’t actually fit on…okay .

Now I come from a long line of pioneering women. We don’t fall feebly at the first fence, so a world class juggling act follows while I jiggle the pans around in a great approximation of someone who knows what they’re doing. At last, lunch is safely on the table and the cake (looking delicious) is in the oven.

Peace reigns briefly, and after lunch, we get the cake out to cool while we clean up and I whip up a quick spinach lasagna for the next day. The jam boils on. We make some coffee, mediate some fights, my neighbour takes the children swimming, and the jam boils on. I go shopping for a few essentials, get lost (those damn country lanes all look the same), find my way home, we give the children tea, and the jam boils on.

Eventually, we decide to put the big pan on the middle of the stove so it is partially straddling all the hotplates and we turn them all up to full. We WILL get this jam to the correct setting temperature. We WILL NOT give up, but we would like to go to bed some time tonight. My neighbour puts some jam jars in the dishwasher to sterilize. Recycled ones, because strangely, I can’t find my new ones from Lakeland. I have a sneaking suspicion my husband has re-cycled them a trifle prematurely. I go upstairs to have one more look, and returning empty handed see that finally the jam has been turned off.

‘Great, has it reached setting point?’ Actually, no, my neighbour informs me, it’s just blown the electrics of the whole house because it’s drawn too much power. First time we’ve managed that in 7 years, she points out. Well, no choice now but to bottle it, and we seem to have around a hundred bottles. Aaargh! Remind me next time before I start please.

I’m too tired to make supper so rather feebly I scrape the last bit of jam out of the pan and slap it on some bread. Mmm…delicious! Well what did you expect from a domestic goddess!

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