Page 18 • The HERALD • 20th February 2025 v SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE HERALD v Wet clean or Dry clean • Carpets • Rugs • Upholstery • Cushions • Mattresses • Caravans & Motor Homes Contact Chris for a free estimate and advice. We have full liability insurance 023 8104 0185 07770 792361 clean-u-up@hotmail.com We provide one of the best professional Carpet & Fabric cleaning Systems Acorn Building Contracts Ltd u Reliable, local builders offering affordable, quality workmanship u Our employees are fully qualified and fully insured u All aspects of building undertaken including extensions, structural alterations, roofing, ground works, kitchens, bathrooms, carpentry and plastering u Drawings arranged u Insurance work undertaken u Local Authority Approved Contractor For free quotations and friendly advice please call Office: 023 8024 3336 Mobile: 07786 656865 Email: acornbuilding@gmail.com or visit our website: www.acorn-builders.co.uk You will not be disappointed ALL ASPECTS OF ELECTRICAL WORK UNDERTAKEN • Full Rewires • New Circuits • Consumer Unit Replacements • Electric Vehicle Charging Points • Landlord Certification • Smart Homes • Central Heating Controls 023 8089 0932 or 07534 343631 www.alnelectrical.co.uk info@alnelectrical.co.uk All aspects of Plastering undertaken Fully Qualified, Reliable, Quality Service 20% OFF until end of April 2025 Free Quotations Call Joe: 07713 724610 SEASON OF MISTS AND MELLOW FRUITFULNESS by Robin Somes, Fawley and Blackfield Memories We all have favourite places. Some like to sit, some to think, some to paint or draw; I like to gather. e things most valuable to me are those that come for free, or at least when the only cost has been my own e ort, so the most reliable places to gather them are precious. Late summer and autumn are my busiest times of the year, for the sheer abundance of one thing or another. Mackerel, bass, mullet and prawns to be caught. For them as likes them - personally, I don’t - gs from the garden, samphire and sea spinach from the shore. en plums, bullaces, damsons, apples, blackberries and crab I picked 22 pounds that day; coming back the next day I got almost the same again – but made scarcely any impression on the bounty there. We cooked, stewed and dried them, and gave them away to relatives, neighbours and friends, for several days a erwards. e following year, the eld was ploughed and dosed with arti cial fertilizer; I never saw another mushroom there, but the memory of those days remains. All these places are special, precious, and I must admit, closely guarded. Some passed down from parents to son; my mother, as a potter, used grasses and leaves to make impressions in her clay, and had her favourite places to nd a certain grass, or just the right size of 5-leaved bramble. My father always knew a good spot for sloes, or the right mark to catch a bass, sole or ounder. Other places are solely my own discovery, usually from a lucky encounter. Either way, if you’d like to know my favourite place of all, it’s a short section of hedgerow in that eld just o the road from… Ahhh, but that would be telling… apples. Later in autumn come mushrooms, sloes and medlars. All are eaten fresh, stewed, frozen, turned into pies, puddings, jam, jelly, cider or wine, or bartered for something even tastier. Finally, around Christmas, there are fat, brightlyburning pine cones for the re, and holly, ivy and butcher’s broom, for decoration. At other times of the year, there are the rarities of the forest, sought out and photographed, but not touched; the king sher, marsh harrier and osprey, the bog orchid, wild gladiolus, green forest hover y, coral necklace, and Hampshire purslane. For each of these many things, I have my favourite place to gather or see them. Sometimes they keep giving year a er year; other places produce a single bonanza, which is never equalled again. I remember where, in 1989, I went to look for sloes, but strayed a little further and found a eld almost white, covered with beautiful eld mushrooms. Sloes (photo by Robin Somes) Digging Deeper on Sale Published in December, ‘Digging deeper: more Waterside stories’ is the follow-up to Robin Somes’ 2023 book, ‘Digging up the past: A collection of Waterside stories’, featuring articles rst published in e Herald. is volume comprises 30 tales, published in 2023 and 2024, of historical events, family connections, and personal recollections of life around Fawley and the Waterside villages. e book is on sale for £6 (cash only) from Te Herald o ce or via Robin’s online shop: shop.robinsomes.co.uk
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