>>>>>>>>Too true. Especially when I switch on my Vodafone and the message "How are you?" appears. It's not in the least interested in how I slipped on the hill, on wet chalk, and, being surrounded by nettles, blackberry bushes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Ahh... your bushes give blackberries... people are spending huge sums of money on both here, and get just this addiction, no joy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>They're everywhere. Every trip up the hill takes twice as long with my daughter as we feast on them. Big and ripe and sweet now. Just had a week's camping in The New Forest (loose ponies and cattle everywhere, in a mixture of moorland and woodland, planted by William the Conqueror, for his private hunting). The blackberries there were much less advanced than here.
>>>>>
>>>>>Interesting about the blackberries. Here we normally wouldn't expect anything worth picking until the end of this month (except me - I love them when they are still red and extra tart).
>>>>
>>>>Seems the same where we were.
>>>>
>>>>>What we *are* getting now in whinberries (for the U.S. audience a bit like miniature blueberries) - high on the hills,labor intensive but delicious!
>>>>>
>>>>>P.S. Good luck with the job application!
>>>>
>>>>Thanks
>>>>
>>>>I'd like to try and grow blueberries (my fave fruit) but we have chalky soil and hard water here. Would cost too much to make beds of erecacious (spelling ???) and I wouldn't be able to use tap water - only collected rain.
>>>>
>>>>BTW, I've never heard of whinberries.
>>>
>>>Local name for VICCINIUM MYRTILLUS. Same name used up North as well.
>>
>>Here in Canada, we have the Saskatoon berry which you guys tried to ban, and eventually allowed.
>>
>>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/23/do2301.xml
>
>Interesting article about bureacratiy stupidity but I see that was four years ago - and I noticed the guy who wrote the article was Boris Johnson who just got elected Lord Mayor of London.......

Yes. That's him. He was a journalist first, then mayor of somplace I don't recall and then London. The decision to ban Saskatoons was reversed as I understand it.

When I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, we used to go down along the North Saskatchewan River that cut Edmonton in half and pick wild Saskatoons. I prefer blueberries, but Saskatoons are good eatin' too.