Halfway Over the Hill #3 (Cherries 2)

 Part 2 - Cherry Lost

(Reading time - 2 book pages of text ~ 900 words)
Friday 18 June

(Heat is here to stay. Insect explosion)

The cherries I really want are the amarena cherries - not ripe yet, surprisingly. I have a couple of small trees.
It's like eating the essence of dark velvety purple and the final tart tickle on your tongue hmm - it's a symphony of deliciousness.
The people here don't like 'sour' cherries but they like sour tomatoes and not the sweet ones. Odd, but more on their oddness at a later date.
Another odd thing, I just tasted one or two dark-looking amarenas, they had the same hue as a very ripe and sweet regular cherry and they tasted horribly bitter. Maybe that's why people don't cultivate them here? They haven't waited for the right moment?
Perhaps they need to become a dark red indigo before they become a gourmet delicacy.
(Or it's just not a local fruit. And they like things local here. League of peasants! That's not disparaging, they are peasant farmers)
Munching last year's right now; they keep in the freezer and when defrosted are like the fresh ones. Yum! ( sweet cherries don't freeze as well)

And stewed in chocolate cake they are just the best. Also advisable if you have a doubt about their freshness.

19 June ( hazy dates to follow)
Hot sultry days and cool nights. Last cherry-picking session yesterday evening, just as well, as some have started to shrivel and ferment.
It did feel faintly ridiculous getting myself tangled in the branches and ripping my clothes to get the one reachable cherry when literally several hundred were metres above my head, safe from my grabbing hands. Cherry pie in the sky!
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a (cherry) heaven for?" (Browning).
I remember this reformulated in an Ealing comedy as, ' a girl's grasp is always beyond her reach'. Certainly true for me.

I spoke to a woman yesterday who has a beautiful cherry tree standing proud in a glade. She said that there was not one that was good. They were still bright red so I though she meant they weren't ripe enough. In fact every single cherry had little puncture holes . So I guess I'm blessed.

19 June

Insects have found my tree.

They say it's the birds that eat the cherries but for me it's the butterflies. There was a party of them this morning. And they dress formally for dinner. Only grand butterflies in sombre colours can attend. A lot of penguin suits too. The giddy butterflies in outlandish neon yellow and turquoise are not invited.

20 June

I'm on my morning spot with coffee and saucer of cherries and greedily eyeing attainable clusters from the profusion, figuring out how I could do it without breaking my neck. Meanwhile there are many uneaten cherries in the fridge.

To answer my own hunter-gatherer question from the first post : I'm more gatherer. For me, hunting is taking nature's hidden bounty and gathering is receiving it, albeit treasure trail fashion following nature's clues.
So late afternoon, I decide to have another go.

The first thing I noticed is that the cherry juice has become the colour of theatrical blood. There are also tiny holes in some and insects are all around. I've rejected the Wild One's offer of a higher step ladder than my two-step one because it has a sharp nail sticking out of the top platform, which he won't remove because it serves some mysterious purpose. 

After just getting 13 unspoiled cherries and brushing away insects, the tree smothers me with its leaves and upon losing my footing and descending to the ground monkey style, slapped by branches, I feel something marauding inside my tight jeans. I thrust my groping hand in but to no avail, the insect is biting all round my groin. I have to unbutton in plain view of the road. There's a 4cm insect with a long luminous pale green shell. Time to quit, I groan. Then I feel something crawling on my leg. A long black coakroach horror. I brush that off too. I go inside and undress. No other invaders. A gatherer unlike a hunter should know when to quit.

21 June
Temperature rising - mental and physical shutdown imminent. Despite yesterday's misadventure I'm still focussed on a bunch of cherries that eluded me yesteday, the challenge would involve Buster Keaton acrobatics on top of a wobbly stepladder with an umbrella that tends to spring open when you least want it to. Sensibly, I give up on the idea
The parent tree has gone from being a well-kept secret to Big Butterfly Central (as big as wrens). There is the odd bird as well. With all the fluttering in and out of butterflies it's like the flickering lights of a forgotten Christmas tree.
Why is this type of cherry called prunus avarium? - there is rarely a bird.

The butterflies don't suck much juice and the cherries appear whole and round from my chair.
But death is near and the tree bedecked in its multitude of black beads is reminiscent of elegant mourning, even the leaves seem forlorn. Who knows if I'll have cherries next year? It's sad to see them go. But in hopeful spring, at least the tree will be attired in cheery bridal-white blossom so there's that to look forward to

I forget : Another thing to do with the cherries is to pickle them in wine. The locals do it with their own strong wine from their own red grapes. The effect is cherry liqueur. Need I say more!

Cherrio!
S

26 June
PS: This has been edited in recent extreme temperatures of 36 in the shade.
Fridge cherries are an interesting alcohol flavour - quite moreish.
On my walks, I see other trees still in the ripening stage.
I've heard that amarenas are not doing well this year.

Listen: Lucio Battisti's song of spiritual release for us 'the children of immensity'. 

'The hill of cherries' La collina di ciliegi
N.B. Battisti fans either love it or hate it.

https://youtu.be/n-9RIxpyyKA