Operation mirabelle

At the weekend we went for a bike ride around Kidlington, on a bramble finding mission........ we found a few but most of them weren't quite ready yet (although I did manage to pick enough to make 4 jars of bramble jelly with, which are now available for sale!) On the way home we spied a tree with loads of very orangey yellow plummy looking fruit on it, most of which were completely out of my reach and were even difficult for my very tall husband to reach (so pretty darned high up!). A Google search later, I found out that the fruits were actually Mirabelles, also known as "cherry plums", which are of French origin and mostly used for jams and to make alcohol. Of course once I read the "j" word, I suddenly became v desperate to get my hands on as much of this fruit as possible for jam making purposes, so Kevin (very tall husband) and I hatched a cunning plan ("Operation Mirabelle") where we would return to the tree under cover of darkness with a ladder, so that we could steal....ahem...I mean "liberate" even more of them. After realising that the bit about going back under cover of darkness was probably highly impractical, we decided to go back to the tree a couple of evenings ago. Armed with a ladder and a Mirabelle grabber* (no patent pending, but there should be!) - a highly technical piece of kit invented by Kevin, we returned to the tree feeling v conspicuous and probably looking extremely suspicious. It's quite difficult to look like you're going about your everyday business with a stepladder under your arm! (I should probably point out now that this tree isn't in anyone's garden or on private land, but is on a piece of land leading to some fields, and it is definitely public access, but for some reason or other I still felt I was doing wrong!).

The amazing Mirabelle grabber worked very well, and after about 10 minutes picking we returned home, with 2.5kg mirabelles, a satisfied feeling, and no criminal record (phew!). All's well that ends well.



I have since made the mirabelles into some gorgeous jam (if I do say so myself!). It's a beautiful golden / orange colour and is quite tangy. Perfect on toast!



* It is amazing what you can do with one of those litter grabber thingies, some wire, a plastic bag and some clothes pegs!!