The other day I met up with two women in their sixties who have been friends since they were 13.

We had come together to do some preserving. One of the woman, Julie had travelled from her home to show us how to do it. She had married a man who had grown up in a household where preserving was the done thing and it was he who had passed on the preserving  passion to his wife. The other woman, Kathy had been trying to organise this "lesson"with Julie for years but it had not come about, one reason being that she just never had enough produce. But Julie came to the party. She'd been travelling in the car and saw in the distance some stone fruit trees in no man's land and gleaned them. After preserving some for herself she packed the rest in the car and  on, to Kathy's place where I met up with these 2 amazing ladies.

We spent the morning chatting , drinking tea and preparing the fruit for preserving. A very simple task and I now feel quite confident to do some bottling. But the most enjoyable part was the comming together with these women, and listening to their stories and sharing the time with them-the way it used to happen I'm told. One of those ways in which life was lived in a simpler and more fulfilling way.

And now onto doing a little gleaning of my own. There must be trees full of fruit out there ripe for the picking.

Anybody else out there done a bit of gleaning?