When we were young, I have extremely fond memories of foraging in the wild for free food. We used to pick blackberries and make mounds of blackberry and apple jelly - like me, my Dad hates things with pips in so it was always strained into jelly rather than made with whole fruit. We’d go home from picking blackberries covered in scratches from where we’d reached too far into the brambles, covered in red splodges and tiny hairs from the ones that got squashed before making it into the pot and often sunburned too from getting so engrossed in the task that we forgot the principles of covering up.

In the early autumn, we’d pick hazelnuts and eat them sweet and juicy from the tree. Later towards the end of autumn there would be sweet chestnuts to pick up off the ground if you could find your way past their spines. We developed a technique of getting them out of the spiky green outer casing by standing on the prickles on either side of the opening to increase the aperture enough to get our fingers in to get the nuts out. We’d sit at home later that day with a bag of nuts some newspaper and a knife and we’d shell them then scrape off the hairy inner skin with a knife. Our fingers would get coated in sticky skin but it was worth all of the effort for the wonderful pleasure of fresh chestnuts.

Since I’ve grown up I’ve also foraged, though often for different things. Sloes for sloe gin, sorrel and recently even nettles. Today I’ve been out picking something I’ve never picked before, bilberries. For anyone who has not heard of a bilberry, they’re our UK indigenous sisters to the North American blueberry. I am shocked at how the blueberry has completely rocketed its way into UK life, although its status as a so-called super food is, I’m sure, responsible. It just goes to show how gullible people are I suppose.

Here is my wild harvest of bilberries picked from our lane and wild strawberries that are growing in the granite of a disused bridge close to here. I think they survive because they’re too high to be grazed by sheep.

Later on in the day, these became jam (also for the wedding breakfast) – a lovely dark berry jam which contained raspberries and apple too.

Somehow, the very act of picking something from the hedgerows that you can then eat is completely satisfying in a way that few things are. I was out with my Tupperware pot for an hour or so and during that time I collected something that even if I’d tried, I’d not have been able to buy. Come on, when did you EVER see bilberries or wild strawberries in a greengrocer or supermarket? The whole thing is simply (in both senses) fabulous.