Seaweed

Each day for the past week I have been gathering seaweed from the shore of the loch. I have a big back basket that I made about 8 or 9 years ago, with help from a friend, at a weekend workshop in Helmsdale. It's a traditional creel made of hazel and willow, and when I strap it on my back I feel connected to generations of women before me who have trudged back up from the shore with seaweed for the garden. I am always amazed by how many strands of nylon rope and fragments of plastic are tangled up in it. I've now gathered 8 baskets full of bladderwrack - one for each vegetable bed, one to mulch the fruit trees and one to mulch the soft fruit bushes - probably enough for this year.

This morning it was low tide, and there was a film of ice on the weed. I watched it disintegrate in the sun, knowing that each sparkling crystal structure, the fractal coastline-pattern of each tiny window-pane, would last only a few minutes more - even if it survived the sunshine, the creeping tide would soon wash it into invisibility. One long, lingering, melting moment later, the ice was gone.

Hedgehog mushrooms

So-called because of their spines where most fungi have gills or sponge. White, firm, chewy flesh, and after a boil-up to remove initial bitterness, delicious.

It's calm today. The quiet of the woods is disarming after weeks of wind-rustling and storm-howling.

Rowan

The geese going over has made me realise the birds will soon arrive from Scandinavia, and they will strip the trees. So between showers yesterday I gathered rowan berries, and inevitably got caught in a couple of heavy downpours. Still, I got a good bucketful of berries and then there was the long, meditative job of stripping them off their stalks before stewing them up with cooking apples - no hassle there, skins, cores and all. The bright red berries go pale peach and the apple fluffs to a paste. Overnight the fruit has been hanging in a straining bag in the tool shed, dripping slowly into a bowl. I like the fact that it makes you wait, takes its time. There's no rushing the rowan. When I've finished my cyberwork I'll go and boil it up with sugar and soak up the bitter-sweet flavour, watching it transform from opaque to clear as the colour blooms, blushing from pale pink to ruby. If I make enough I'll trying selling it through the Food Link. But I'll need enough to last the year. Traditionally you eat it with venison. It's great on toast and even better with cheese. But to really get the most out of it, have it with turnip or swede.

Brambles/Caravan Crumble

It's bramble time. Yee-hah. The best bit is this early season because the first blackberries to ripen are the ones at the tip of the spikes and they're the biggest, juiciest and most delicious. I made the mistake of going picking without a jacket and got well and truly tangled - long hair, woolly jumpers and bramble thorns are a dangerous combination. But it was worth it for those black glossy clusters of sunshine. Now for the best bit of the day - Caravan Crumble. You think you can't make crumble without an oven? Wrong. It's the best pudding I know. The recipe's a secret.

Oh all right then. Remove spiders and other wildlife from brambles. Tip them into a saucepan with a peeled, chopped cooking apple and a spoonful of sugar. Put a lid on and stew gently until it looks juicy and the apple has collapsed into squidge. Get one shallow pudding bowl each and share out the brambles. Crumble two digestive biscuits onto each bowl (it's an art worth learning). Grill until the biscuit starts to toast. Top with crumbled chocolate and yoghurt or cream. Yummy.