Appreciating the Moment

My girls don't watch Tom & Jerry. When I was a kid I watched Tom & Jerry at every opportunity I had... which wasn't very often. But that, I think is the whole point. Occasionally, on a Saturday afternoon, I would be inside long enough, with the TV on at just the right moment to catch the 5 minutes of Tom & Jerry filling a space before the next installment of sport or other adult-orientated telly. It was a special moment, one to relish. Tom & Jerry is still on the TV but it no longer holds a special place in children's hearts because if they want to watch some children's telly they can switch to one of many dedicated channels at any point in the day. And it is not just children's TV that it like this. What with themed channels to suit every taste and hobby, "plus one" channels for when you are running late, iplayer for when you missed the episode completely and Netflix for when you missed the entire series, it is now impossible to miss anything. Although, weirdly, despite all these channels, I somehow find it harder now to find anything on that I actually want to watch!

You may be wondering what all this has to do with jam. The way that TV has been turned into something for our own convenience is reflected in other parts of our lives. A similar feel now runs through our food and drink and shopping habits. Rather than living with the seasons, we can buy whatever it is that we fancy whenever we want it. So now, instead of enjoying, say, the strawberry season for the few months of summer, we can eat strawberries whenever we feel like it. And what about picking some apples off a tree... meh! Maybe later... who cares if they all fall to the ground when we can go and buy some instead if that happens.

It is odd really that if asked if you would want things to happen for your convenience you would, of course, say an emphatic yes. Yet, now we have achieved this with so many parts of our lives, I feel we are now missing something. Like a spoilt child, given everything he whims, we have lost interest in what we receive. If strawberries were only available from June to August, would we not wait, with eager anticipation for the start of the strawberry season? If gathering food from trees made the difference between eating or not during the winter, wouldn't we make more of an effort to pick fruit?

I do my best to live with the seasons. I don't buy strawberries out of season and by June my girls are willing the strawberries to ripen. At this time of year I do my best to gather as much as I can of the abundance and get it stored for later use. Even so, when I say to my girls, "Shall we go out for a bit of foraging?" I'm met with a groan of indifference. "Meh! Maybe later."

The weekend before last I managed to persuade them (ok, I insisted) to go out with me to forage from the hedgerow. It does them good on so many levels. It was sunny, the air was fresh, they were learning what is edible and what is not, we were out as a family, away from technology and aware of the season. We picked sloes, blackberries, rosehips, haws, elderberries and crabapples. When they got bored and I wasn't finished, I sent them into the long grass to play with the grasshoppers that were chirping away merrily. They broke off rose thorns and stuck them on their noses to be rhinoceroses, they picked bindweed flowers and imagined the fairies that would wear them as hats. And then we returned home, pink cheeked, pleasantly tired and with bagfuls of fruit.

This morning I went out foraging again. It was a Monday morning, it was chilly and drizzling. I went back to the same spot we had been last week to find that the hedges had been trimmed and the long grass mowed. There was just enough sloes left for the recipe I had in mind but not the easy bounty of the previous week. Everything was different actually: the weather, the company (or lack of), the smells, sounds and outcomes. As pleasant as it was to start my week in this gentle way, it was not the same as the way I had ended the previous week. To me it demonstrated the need to just get out there when things are happening rather than putting things off, accepting that some things do move on, are not available on "catch-up" or possible to purchase online. And when you are in that moment, enjoying it, take a breath, step back and appreciate it, for next week it will be gone.

The sloes have nearly finished now but if you are quick you can still get out there in time to pick enough to make some sloe gin. Don't think that you'll do it later or you'll miss the moment and come Christmas, when the weather is cold, the trees are bear and you fancy a special tipple to sip you'll wish you'd done it!

Sloe Gin Recipe (courtesy of Good Food Magazine)

Ingredients

• 450g/1lb sloes
• 225g/8oz caster sugar
• 1 litre/1¾ pint gin

Preparation method

1. Prick the tough skin of the sloes all over with a clean needle and put in a large sterilised jar.
2. Pour in the sugar and the gin, seal tightly and shake well.
3. Store in a cool, dark cupboard and shake every other day for a week. Then shake once a week for at least two months.
4. Strain the sloe gin through muslin into a sterilised bottle.