Verity Damson

Dear readers,

 

With every passing year I am learning to be more Proustian in my alertness to the look and feel of my surroundings.  It's a skill which requires being present in the instant with niggling worries locked away and a slow, steady heartbeat.   I still haven't mastered the art of standing still for long: my mother has been teaching me the philosophy behind Chi Kung and so far I cannot stand like a tree for longer than five minutes.  I prefer instead to be in motion and find my senses to be more alert to my surroundings when walking.

 

Now that the sweet cherry season has finished I am scouring our beautiful countryside for damson trees.  I know the fruit will be ready to pick mid-August once we have returned from our holiday and I want to make the most of them as soon as they are ripe.  Damsons, the close sibling of the garden plum, are both generous and inviting, weighing down their brittle branches like great purple gems. As long as you have plenty of sugar in store they make glorious crumbles and cobblers and a rich dark-coloured jam.  There is, of course, the famous damson cheese which Monty Don mentions in The Ivington Diaries; an intense and superb conserve to be enjoyed with game, lamb, and a good strong cheese.

 Aside from its rich, deep flavour the damson is a true aesthetic charm.  One of my favourite descriptions of its beauty comes from The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift.

'I have never left the damsons so late on the tree, and their emerald felsh is succulent and sweet beneath their blue-black coats.  When I later turn them out on to the kitchen table, the heap of shining black fruit with their matt powder-blue overlay is flecked with narrow pale gold leaves.  What a colour scheme for a room!  My little study perhaps?  How lovely to paint one's rooms the colours of the fruit in the garden.'

I may not be able, for the time being, to paint our home's walls the same shades as apples, plums and pears (just wait until we buy own house) but I was able to create a doll dressed in rich purple.  Let me introduce you to Miss Verity Damson whose heart belongs to late summer when the damson plums ripen and glisten on the old plum tree in her garden.  She loves to make damson crumble or to top a rich buttery cake with plums and sugar.  She also loves, as you may have noticed, the colour purple. I had so much fun sewing this doll who reminds me of the Kate Greenaway illustrations I relished as a child. She wears pantaloons stitched from 1900s hand-embroidered tulle and trimmed with antique creamy lace and I have embroidered little violets on her Liberty fabric bonnet.

 The damsons may not be ready to pick yet but, believe me, I spent many an hour dreaming of them in the presence of this little lady.  I think, perhaps, I should make some more friends for Verity to bring to fruition more of my dreams.

 

Happy, beautiful summer to you all!

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

ps Verity Damson has flown to a new home in England.