three's a crowd

... or 'playing the gooseberry'.

Have you ever wanted to bottle something intangible? Sitting on your back doorstep in the first proper sun of summer; that feeling when your tooth is very lose and squelches when you agitate it; Christmas lunch - any lunch?

In the morning my single squirt of perfume brings a moment of glamour for the day: my spirits lift, I immediately stand taller. It is a serious day when I need two squirts. I think of this perfume as bottled energy, invisible armour that can be dipped into as needed.

This evening I had some toast spread with Auntie Cyn's gooseberry jam. It was a Christmas gift, and came paired with a jar of marmalade - the very same that adorned this morning's breakfast toast. This morning the bright citrus taste in a just-set jelly reminded me of bottled sunshine and I imagined myself in Spain. This evening with the gooseberry jam though, I felt that a little of my childhood home had been preserved and came alive again in my London kitchen.

Auntie Cyn lives next to my parents, so it is no leap at all to remember the gooseberries they grew (still grow) in both their gardens, the singular smell of blackcurrant bushes behind them : I have a multitude of memories from those gardens. Eating jammed gooseberries this evening made me feel as if I were right there, lifting the lid of the rhubarb forcer to see the frogs, stealing peas, jumping over the row of daffodils. It was not a misty-eyed nostalgic moment, but instead, terribly comforting. The gooseberry jam, like my perfume, preserves something intangible - not just last summer's fruit.