Wild Damsons and “Flowers of the Mind”

I went for a walk yesterday, between the showers and up behind the reservoir, along a seldom used track. I was really looking for some blackberries but despite the huge numbers of brambles lining every path, they were disappointingly small and scant.

Then I came to a dark shady patch where two trees, taller than the hawthorns and sloes, meet overhead.

The ground beneath was littered with the small dark fruit of a wild plum. They are beautiful, velvety blue black to crimson, some with a powder blue bloom and some split open, revealing that liquid greeny yellow interior.
They are also deliciously sweet. I ate a few. They were warm from the sun. I

remembered happy days of eating my way round Leu Gardens, then filled my pockets and walked back, feeling the crushed fruit slowly seeping through to my skin.

Here is a quote from Katherine Mansfield which sums up where I found my damsons, and where I, too, like my mind to be.

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

— Katherine Mansfield

A solitary fruit on a twig, the drought curled leaves are stiff, already autumnal tattered and dry.

Six little fruit which survived the pocket intact. Just beautiful..:)