Summer Berry Picking

When I was younger summer always meant one thing to me, no school! It was always great getting to sleep as long as I wanted and being able to just run around the house all day, until after maybe the first two weeks when I got really bored of my house. One of my favorite things to go and do in the summer would be berry picking. My gran would usually come and take me, my brother and sister, and a few of my cousins to go to a farm and pick strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and even gooseberries. This would always be a lot of fun, we would go out on a really sunny day so it would be hot and I really enjoyed it. We would always end up having a fight with any of the bad berries that we picked and this would always be messy, we would go home with bright red and purple splat marks on our shirts. We also ate so many berries when we were picking them, by the time we got them home we were sick of them and did not want to eat anymore! Gooseberries were always a bit curious to me, but my gran always wanted to pick some to use them in her cooking. They are a strange fruit that are usually green but can also be orange or red. They look almost like really swollen and round grapes but they are strangely hairy. The gooseberries, if they were to be eaten by themselves, are very tart and kind of hard which is why it is much better to use them to make jam or a gooseberry crumble. One of my grans’ specialties with gooseberries would be her gooseberry fool. It is not the prettiest looking dessert but it tastes great and is quite easy to make. It is just a mix of the cooked berries (with some sugar to sweeten them up) and it is blended with whipped cream, or sometimes custard.