One of the great pleasures of where we live is the long walk home from the centre of town. It's not often you can say that, but the long, looping route around the loch is fairly spectacular; the view of the palace, the swans, the sail boats and at this time of year, most gloriously, the hedges! Don't get me wrong, the rest of the year they are both pretty and practical, but only now, for 4 or 5 weeks in August & September are they feasts of riotously coloured berries.
Last night I walked Christina home from work with Elspeth in the pram. Given that one of the most pleasant places on Earth is quiet beer garden on a warm summer evening, we stopped in at The Swan for pint. The Swan is surely the most under-realised spot in Linlithgow. It has a wonderful walled space (I hesitate to call it a garden given the complete absence of plants) with a couple of sturdy tables, which acts as a afternoon sun trap, completely protected from the wind and with a gate that brings you out 30 yards from the loch. Unfortunately inside it has all the worst aspects of the Scottish 'old man' pub. Noisy fruit machine; check. Multiple televisions showing horse racing; check. Walls covered in brewery tat old & new; check (I should say that I like an old brewery liveried mirror in a bar, it's a nice focal point, I just don't like a dozen of them, you feel like you are in an alcoholic hall of mirrors). Solitary, bored looking member of staff; check. Food limited to bar snacks available in packets; check, with the bonus factor of proudly stocking Double D nuts, those ridiculous cardboard sheets where every time you sell a packet, more of scantily clad lady is revealed (in this really a draw anymore?).
Often the only saving grace of such places is a decent pint and here you are only half disappointed; The Swan sells Sam Smith's Cider and their Dark & Mild. Both are excellent, but if you are in the mood for a lager or a heavier beer then you are out of luck since its either bottles of the standard fizzy stuff or Belhaven Best & Tennent's (Scotland's other shame) on draught. So we grabbed a couple of pints of cider and had a thoroughly enjoyable 45 minutes hanging out in the sunshine. The drawback of this was that we were getting dangerously close to Elspeth's dinnertime and on the walk home, it was the hedges who came to our rescue.
"Are you sure those are ripe?"
The brambles are getting tantalisingly close to full fruit. There are a few that have fully ripened, looking like little collections of glistening, purple bubbles. When you see a bramble like that it easy to understand why purple is considered a royal colour by so many cultures; it screams richness, wealth & desirousness. Frankly not picking them seems like a non option, but a special picking trip will be made for these in a couple of weeks, right now most still have a pinkish blush, hinting at the goodness to come.
What is perfect right now are the wild raspberries. They are less plentiful than the brambles, but what a joy they are. Less brightly coloured & smaller than their commercial cousins, they hide amongst the reeds along the water's edge, making picking them an adventure. What makes it all worthwhile is the burst of fruity sweetness and grin on my daughter's face as she tucks in to an unexpected pre dinner snack.
"Linlithgow Loch's finest produce gets the ultimate taste taste"
