Cherries, cherries and more cherries.

I haven't posted for a few days because we've been far too busy, mostly picking cherries!  There are a few trees in the park 5 minutes walk from us which are laden with fruit and it would, quite frankly, be a crime not to go foraging.  I'm amazed that there aren't more people there with plastic tubs and a step ladder.

On Wednesday, we went ice-skating in town (returning the various things we'd borrowed from C & D - thank you! And taking them some of our things to borrow).  We also went on a not-surprisingly unsuccessful hunt around the shops for the slippers that both K & M had decided they needed.  Fortunately I'd warned them that this might be the case and they weren't too disappointed.  K & M now have their swimming lesson on a Wednesday, having changed from Thursday when they moved up a few weeks ago.  Outside the leisure centre where they have there lesson, there is a cherry tree, so we went a little bit early.  Ten minutes with help from K & M before their lesson and another 15 minutes of me up the tree while they were swimming and this was the result.

Thursday morning we went to one of the trees in the park and came home with these.

It was the last gymnastics class before the summer break, but later on we returned, but this time with a step ladder.

Both K & M really liked going up the ladder and we did so well, that I send K home to get another plastic tub!  This is what we had by the end of the day, mostly from the one tree in the park, but with a few from another one, which has much bigger but thicker skinned cherries.

There are 5lb in the colander and probably not far the same in the two tubs.  I made jam with the 5lb, but unfortunately it didn't set very well at all.  I defrosted the freezer this morning and now we have about 3lb in there and there were still some left in the fridge to eat.

This afternoon we met up with friends at a really lovely park near their house.  K was in something of a strop, because she'd decided she didn't want to go out and wasn't actually dressed yet, which I got rather cross about because she had known we were going out and then was very huffy when I sent her to get dressed.  M & N played nicely on the see-saw for a while and went on the zip-wire, although some English-French translation was needed at times.

So what did we do this evening after tea?  A family outing back to the park with the step ladder and two big tubs, of course!  We went back to the first tree and nearly filled one of the tubs, then went to the tree with the bigger, thicker skinned cherries and half filled the second.  Then, I remembered another tree and went to check it out while A and the girls carried on picking.  The final tree is by the park fence and on the park side all the branches are way too high to reach, however, on the pavement the other side of the fence there were quite a few branches that look like this.

So we finished up here and K (who likes cherries just to eat, unlike M who is all about the pies and jam) declared them the best cherries, she'd ever eaten ever!  We will be returning, probably tomorrow if it's not too hot, because there are so many that are just going to waste and I just can't be doing with that!