Bounty

I love raspberries. I could eat them for every meal and never get sick of them. I really, really love them.

So then it follows that C's parents' raspberry patch is one of my favourite places on Earth. I feel like a kid in a candy store whenever I'm out there. It's just too good to be true that I can stroll amongst the bushes and eat as many as I want. As many as I want!!

It's not only too good to be true because they are so deliciously yummy, it's also too good to be true because in the shops they cost a small fortune. And I am eating them for free. As many as I want. As many as I want!!

I really am incredulous about this - that I really can eat as many raspberries as I want and there will still be enough for C's parents. This is despite C's mother assuring me there are too many for them to ever eat, and despite the fact that in winter she gives me milk cartons full of frozen raspberries to empty out her freezer. I find it even harder to believe there's enough now, with Téo and Lukan also gobbling them up as fast as they can (and don't think that a baby can't keep up with the rest of us!)

This is from last year - we filled the container and the three of us managed to empty it in one sitting.

So last weekend when C's parents went away and told us we could pick as many raspberries as we liked, I couldn't help but want to guard them as the precious things they are.

- Téo, we are picking these for dessert. Don't eat them now, put them straight into the container.

- OK mummy, I understand what you're saying.

And he did collect them without eating any... until he saw C gorging himself. And Lukan too.

I resolutely kept on collecting them for dessert... but then started to get a bit tired of being the only one doing this. And there were just so many raspberries. I'd think I'd have stipped a section bare, and then I'd look back at a different angle and see clusters of bright red berries that I'd missed.

So I started eating the odd one here and there. It wasn't long before I descended into full-blown gluttony. And still there were more raspberries waiting to be picked.

Despite us all eating our fill, we collected two containers' worth. Two days in a row.

The third day I was actually thankful it was raining so we didn't have to go pick more (a sunny day would mean more ripe raspberries and there was no way I could let them rot on the bushes, even if we hadn't yet eaten all the ones we had collected). And another two days later, when we were struggling to eat the last of the collected raspberries before they went off, I finally accepted that the raspberry patch really does produce an awful lot of raspberries.