BLACKBERRY & NANCY

Three year old Nancy’s first word, aged ten months, was something resembling ‘blackberry’ – ‘bah bah’. Happily, not after a PDA but, being a country kid, after the fruit that she was fed from the hedgerows. Presents aren’t generally much fun when you’re really, really young and I wanted Nancy to understand what she was being given for Christmas so I made her a big blackberry. I bought a purple sweater from Oxfam but it ran out before the blackberry was complete, I finished it off with red bobbles (druplets) made out of a moth eaten scarf. This September Nancy and I went blackberrying, we ate more than we collected. When we got home we made a crumble that was more crumble than fruit. On serving it up to the rest of the family, Nancy, with her moustache of juice, unblinkingly denied eating any blackberries.

19 Dec 2010