It’s been dull, damp and gloomy here today, which is just as well considering the size of the pile of reading I’ve had to do. By four o’clock the dogs were pinging off the walls and DM was extremely fed up with being on the sofa so we harnessed up and braved the moor.

There’s a bit of me that wants to say there was nothing photogenic out there but that’d have been a lie – there was plenty of photogenic stuff but the light was awful and it was hard to get a shot with any texture. So when I saw these haw berries they jumped out as the most colourful thing in an otherwise grotty day.

Last year my Mum picked me a bucket full of haw berries and I made haw ketchup with them. It was quite nice but not worth the cuts and scratches my poor Mum got picking them. (I was exercising the dogs at the time hence not helping to harvest the berries.) If, and it’s a big IF, I get a chance next weekend, I’m planning to make some chutney and some jam out of a bumper harvest of apples on the mother apple tree. If I can’t find the time they are going to go to waste which is a terrible sin considering it’s the first harvest for several years.