onionbagblog

Ever keen to harness my reputation as a hunter and gatherer along the estuary wilds, I set out with @AnnaJCowen for a rosehip picking session. It was rather productive, if slightly prickly, and certainly worthwhile in terms of striking up conversations with other Wivenhoe locals.

“Are you picking rosehips?”

“Yep.”

“Ah, are you making some syrup out of them?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Do you know how to?”

“Nope. Please do share…”

And so we walked away around an hour later from the downstream Wivenhoe Trail with a couple of containers of rosehips, and some wonderful shared dialogue about what the chuffers to do with the red berries back at base.

Truth be told, and neither @AnnaJCowen nor I are great syrup lovers. Having clocked up an online food shopping bill earlier, the rosehip picking session seemed like some form of balance to cancel out all those endless online food miles.

The crop itself was ample. With the blackberries now long since seen off along the estuary, rosehips are not in short supply. We could have returned with tenfold the amount.

Conversations aside and it’s not the most exciting of lunchtime activities to be honest. But the estuary was magnificent as ever. In the hour in which we spent picking and getting pricked, the Colne rolled back into quay, providing sufficient high tide for some trade to pass along the muddy banks.

I can only speculate as to what the cargo was or wasn’t - rosehip syrup must be low on the list of local shipping priorities. But with a kitchen now full of red berries ready to liquidate, I wouldn’t rule out our own Wivenhoe food export business…