Strawberries and Rain Showers Again
Strawberries and Rain Showers Again
Apologies for the radio silence. I was unwell last week and now Aubrey isn’t well. If everyone is feeling better, we plan to go strawberry picking again this weekend, so I thought I’d share this post from a year ago instead of writing something new. I am also having a little sale this week, offering 10% off any painting commissioned before Monday. Please email me to enquire and view my website for more information about the process.
I am standing at the top of the furthest strawberry field from the farm car park holding a crate containing six empty punnets. I look down across the long rows of strawberry plants that slope towards a hedge, to the valley beyond. The blackening sky makes the green mid-summer fields appear similar in tone to the sea during a thunderstorm.
The weather forecast had continually changed for today, the dreaded dark-cloud-with-three-raindrops icon moving from mid-afternoon to morning and back again so we had given up trying to outsmart forces beyond our control and just got into the car, hoping it would hold off until we had filled our punnets with fruit.
I crouch down beside the rows of strawberry plants and lift a limp-looking leaf. I am surprised by the world full of colour and detail beneath. The stalks are a brilliant red that seems to have seeped into the leaves as if stained by a potent dye, but the fruit that dangles from the plants is rotten and bruised.
This doesn’t feel promising but what do I know? I have never picked strawberries before. I have just seen a lot of pictures of friends’ children in fields proudly holding gleaming punnets on Instagram recently and had a strong sense that it is a wholesome and fun family activity, appropriate to our newish status as almost-country dwellers.
Another leaf reveals tiny white fruit that almost looks like some specialty berry you would buy at an upmarket greengrocer and the familiar realisation that today will not be as success starts to descend on me Perhaps all the people we saw walking towards us with their crates piled high have taken all the best ones and we should have got here earlier, or there is another secret field that we don’t know about where all the best strawberries are.
Family outings aren’t always our strong suit; the pressure to have a good time seems to bring out the worst in all of us. Aubrey becomes uncooperative or wingey causing Ross to be irritable to veer between false jollity and asking everyone constantly if they are having a good time. Our happiest moments as a family are often on a Sunday morning in our pyjamas, the TV on in the background, surrounded by toys and crumbs We have decided that we are just going to be lazy because leaving the house and packing up the snacks and the spare clothes feels like too much effort.
I hear a shout from the entrance to the field and Aubrey is running up towards me between the rows of plants, clutching two quite moldy-looking strawberries in one hand and a monster truck in the other. Ross walks up behind him and says there wasn’t much in that field either but we agree to keep looking, more for Aubrey's amusement than anything else I hand them both punnets and Ross laughs at my optimism for insisting on picking up six of them when we arrived.
So, I crouch down at a different row and begin lifting leaves again without much hope but after a few unpromising plants, I start to find them. My brain seems to slow down and I find I am looking more carefully and the more round fully red fruit I spot amongst rotten and still-white ones, the more appear.I hear the odd triumphant ‘YES” from Ross and whoops of joy from Aubrey. I call him over when I find a good one and let him pick it. I discover a lumpen green strawberry that looks like an alien with lots of eyes and one that is two strawberries merged like fruit lobster claw both of which delight Aubrey. Our punnets which had looked so tragic moments ago start to fill up.
At first, there are only a few little splatters of rain but soon they intensify. We are close to a mile from the car and there is no shelter apart from getting a waterproof jacket Aubrey’s on over his already-soaked t-shirt it is quickly apparent that there is nothing we can do. The rain seems to fuel Aubrey’s pleasure and he charges around emboldened so we just continue the hunt, the backs of Ross and my t-shirts becoming sodden as more and more perfect strawberries appear, the droplets of rain on their surfaces making them glisten. Every so often, either Ross or I suggest half-heartedly that maybe we are soaked enough and should head back to the car, but we stay, rummaging through the plants.
Eventually, once the punnets are full we make our way back through the fields towards the car. The rain has stopped and in the humid air and our soaked clothes, we feel like we are wading through the water. As we climb up the hill, I stop to look back across the valley and I think of how lovely and deep the green of the hills is and what a pleasing geometric element a row of poplars add to the patchwork of fields. The points of an Oast House chimney emerge from behind a distant hedge, anchoring the scene in this particular part of the world.
Driving home, an idea for a painting featuring a tangle of red strawberry stems against a green pattern of fields forms in my mind. I know I won’t have time to do it anytime soon, probably not ever but instead of being depressed by this knowledge, I just let my thoughts drift onto something else as the thatched roofs and overgrown hedges speed past us.
Later that afternoon, I made Aubrey a snack. I spread cream cheese on two Jacobs crackers and put two whole strawberries on top of them so they became sinister-looking protruding eyes. I then chop one in half to make a nose, chop up a few more, and arrange them into a weird gummy smile on the plate. Before I take the plate over to him, I pop one of the smaller strawberries into my mouth, and I am so surprised at its intense sweetness that I have to stop for a moment just to appreciate the sensation. In my mind, I see an explosion of deep red, almost blood-like ink spreading across white fabric, and it startles me out of my end-of-a-long-day slump.
Once I have given Aubrey his snack, I return to the kitchen to eat more strawberries. And as I put them into my mouth, I post photos of Aubrey grinning soggily in the strawberry field onto our family WhatsApp group. I note they are an accurate representative of the mood of the outing as opposed to feeling like propaganda for the day we wish we had had.
There is probably some sort of earnest lesson to be learned here, about the simple joys of engaging with nature, about locally grown produce, and being present in the moment. But I also know that we could replicate the outing with similar conditions, and Aubrey might decide to have a tantrum or we might all not have had enough breakfast, and the same downpour would be the final straw and cause us to drive back to St Leonards with empty punnets and empty hearts.
Perhaps the main takeaway from the day is that, like the perfectly ripe strawberries nestled amongst the anaemic and the overripe ones, the elusive nature of what makes a successful family outing is the same thing that makes the strawberries you pick yourself so delicious and rewarding. And if you always give up and go home at the first sign of rain, you will never find either.