Sorry, I disappeared all of September.
If you imagined I was going through a period of angst in front of my easel, ripping up paper, sighing and throwing things about in frustration, then you'd be wrong.
I spent the whole month foraging.
From mid-way through August, I've been freezing blaeberries. Then in September, I added rowanberries, hawthorn berries, plums, damsons, blackberries, rosehips and latterly elderberries, to the mix.
As well as loaded with VitC, these dark berries are full of antioxidants, and other good stuff, and therefore great for boosting a sluggish immune system in the winter.
Hearing from the doom merchants that Christmas is likely to be a damp squib this year, with possible food shortages, high fuel bills, possible power cuts, shortage of gifts available (from China, at least) and a possible new Covid outbreak, I decided to make liqueurs. They might be a healthy accompaniment to a Sweet & Sour Pot Noodle, if that's all that's left in my larder.
Rowed up in Kilner jars are: Blaeberry Brandy Liqueur, Plum Brandy Liqueur and Rowanberry Vodka Liqueur.
Visually, they are a pleasing graduation from peachy pink through to dark red and inky black. They won't be bottled until December but will be on hand to cope with any Christmas emergency. I can temporarily drown my sorrows!
Other things made include a Whisky Marmalade and an Autumn Hedgerow Jam which includes everything, except alcohol.
On my foraging trips with Hebe-the-dog, I came across some rose bushes with jet black hips. When I looked these up online, I discovered they are the hips of the Scotch Burnet Rose - the white rose of Scotland.
The rose produces sweetly-perfumed, delicate tissue-white flowers on the sharpest thorniest stems. In ancient times, these roses were planted to mark graves. Sometimes they cover a huge circle of ground, and these indicate a mass grave - as in, a communal grave for those lost in battle, or, as in the Cholera pits of the 1830s. Cholera claimed the lives of thousands of folk nationwide, and up to around Helmsdale in the Highlands, I believe.
Yet another historical fact not brought to my attention in my history lessons in Thurso primary school - being taught very little local, or even Scottish history. How I would have loved to have known about the battles fought locally with the Norse invaders!
But all I remember about our lesson on the Vikings is a picture of them wearing helmets with horns and with such scowls on their faces, that made me imagine a blood-curdling roaring coming from their mouths. Oh, and they sailed to Britain in longboats and they raped and pillaged. I didn't understand the meaning of the last two words but I reiterated them - verbatim - in tests on the Vikings.
The facts about them settling in Caithness, integrating with the locals and intertwining both cultures into our vocabulary & place names, were unexplained and became an unknown mystery to me. Yet I knew all the names of Henry VIII's wives, the background to the Wars of the Roses, and that William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered.
I'm digressing bigtime now.
But as with most things in life, or so I've surmised, there is a narrative of facts to be learned en masse, and then there are your own personal investigations that lead you down different paths into interesting discoveries.
I've long been interested in the ancient spellings of place names and how they become englified and altered through time, so that they stray further away from the original meaning, and history.
Am I losing you?
To illustrate: getting back to the mound of Burnet Roses that I discovered near Cyderhall by Dornoch. The area is known locally as Sydera, and has Norse and Roman connections. It is thought to be the lands of a farmer, or woman of status who lived there. The new spelling, Cyderhall, does not hint at these connections.
Near Latheronwheel, where I was born, there are neighbouring areas called Guidebest and Loedebest. Incomers pronounce Guidebest, 'Guide Best'. However, locals would say Giddybist, because in ancient times the bist (pony, horse or ox) was guided in one area, and loaded in the other.
When I was younger, I'd quizzed my Nana for an explanation of the history, but she said it was before her time, and couldn't help.
Throughout Caithness there are place names that do not conform to an englified spelling - eg Achavannich is pronounced Avvie-annich, Occumster is pronounced Oak-mister, to name a few - and Thirsa (Thurso) and Week (Wick) for the two county towns. And that is because the place names are from a spoken mix of Gaelic and Norse for which there is no written English, or indeed southern Scottish, equivalent.
I've strayed from my foraging musing into a place name rant. And in that respect, I've started with preserves and ended with place name preserving!
Is it liqueur o'clock?
: )
