There’s something about this time of year when life seems to grind to a halt and we enter the summer doldrums. The kids are off school. Family & friends decide it’s time to descend on beautiful Bath. My husband and I work from home, so whaddya do? Gotta slow down and hang a little, like these blackberries.

Blackberries ripening on Bath stone wall

Aren’t they beautiful? When these brambles have surfaced in previous years I’ve hacked them back, taking them for uninvited guests. But then somebody pointed out that they’re actually a garden cultivar, so I cut them some slack. And they’ve repaid my new-found tolerance with this gorgeous display which is helping to fill the large gap in my garden between the early summer strawberries and the autumn raspberries.  I’ve had a couple of small supermarket-sized punnets of them so far. They taste wonderfully perfumey – midway to a raspberry, I’d say – but until some Silicon Valley genius invites the scratch-and-sniff blog, you’ll just have to take my word for it.