I often think that for most people being a parent means dealing with a large dollop of guilt - guilt at not spending enough time playing with your child because you need to get the dinner on, guilt at not reading them just one more story because you're dog-tired and just need a little adult time, guilt at being glad it's nearly the first day of term... (ha, that's me right now!) The guilty list goes on. Most of my guilt stems from the fact that of my 2 children Toby gets by far the most attention and often Amy has to make do with very little of my time and misses out on activities that we'd do as a family if we had 2 'normal' children. The summer hols are especially difficult for her as she has to cope with the worst of both worlds - she's not an only child and so doesn't get maximum available adult attention, she has a brother but he's not a playmate. We are beginning to look into some kind of respite but it's early stages and I know I am going to struggle leaving my incredibly vulnerable and precious boy in the care of someone else for more than a few hours. Anyway, at the moment we make do by splitting our family down the middle and doing separate activities - one of us stays at home for tickles and bouncing with Toby while the other takes Amy out.
One of the things I've been meaning to do with Amy for ages is berry picking. I remember happy afternoons from my own childhood when we used to go berry picking every year (and chestnut gathering in autumn, snowdrop and bluebell spotting in late winter and spring). I found that there was a pick-your-own farm nearby and so Amy and I set off for a wee bit of quality mum and daughter time. I was surprised that it was virtually deserted there and that they had strawberries rotting on the plants - obviously times have changed since I was little and berry picking just isn't very popular.
Amy and I had a great time though - munching on strawberries and raspberries as we picked them, looking at the different stages the fruit goes through as it develops and generally enjoying the time together. Because it was such a rare and special time we ended up picking more berries than we needed and so when we got home I thought we'd have a go at making jam.
Let me just say that Delia Smith's recommended 8 minutes for boiling it up didn't work for us - it was more like 20 minutes and then I wasn't sure if it would set.
The kitchen was a bomb site with sticky goo everywhere (I guess it would have helped if we'd actually had the right utensils and if I'd watched it properly and not let it boil over!)
The resulting jam probably wouldn't win any prizes but it certainly tastes sweet to me because mixed in there with the fruit and the sugar are some very special memories of some rare mother and daughter time - a simple activity for sure but then often those are the best.
