Dave's blog

Getting on for three weeks ago my girlfriend (Ellie) and myself picked around 12 Kilos of cherries growing on a country lane in the middle of the Cotswolds. These were choice, fat, sweet cherries along with morellos, Japanese yellow and a few other varieties we couldn’t name. We couldn’t believe how much the trees were producing and more importantly how much we could pick and still leave more than enough for the locals and the local wildlife. The trees were heaving and if we had time we could have picked even more!
We were looking after a friends small-holding at the time living off eggs from his hens, watercress we’d picked from a running stream along with bits of food we’d brought with us and things from his garden.
Soon the time came to leave and we loaded up our bikes with crates of cherries, I found room in my bag for a cabbage and a few other choice fruit and vegetables before heading off back to Bristol.

We decided to put a cash figure on what we took home or ate during our stay. All of the food was free range, organically grown or picked from the wild.
Watercress and other wild greens – £12
2 Cabbages – £2
12 Kilos of cherries – £120
12 Eggs (we did get egg bound!) – £4
Broccoli £1.50
Potatoes £2.50
Spinach – £1
Salad Leaves – £2
Broad Beans – £2
Blackcurrants – £4

So all in all we had over £150 worth of food in our bellies and on our bikes. We came home to a similar amount of food off my allotment, gluts of broad beans, rhubarb, gooseberries, raspberries, loads of potatoes, salad leaves, cabbages plus herbs, roots and various other bits and bobs.
On top of this we’d found a fantastic bin for skip diving, or dumpster diving as some know it. This had bananas, a whole watermelon, carrots, some moolis (big white radishes), plums and I’m sure some more things that I can remember.

We’ve been pickling, making jam, freezing things and quite frankly enjoying the abundance of food.

This abundance has prompted us to not spend a single penny on food for as long as we can. I’ve had an added bonus by doing some work for the BBC talking about freeganism and taking home a large bag of shopping they were going to just throw away!

It will be three weeks on Monday (20th July) without spending a penny, I’m even drinking water in cafés and pubs when I go out, lets see how long we can both last!

As some readers of this blog or visitors to our main website may know I recently broke my wrist. To add insult to injury, or rather to add injury to injury yesterday I managed to burn the same hand. One of my housemates had left a plastic washing up bowl on top of the cooker and I decided to make myself a little snack of cheese on toast. A strange smell started to fill the kitchen and a strange greyish lump appeared on my toast. I poked it wondering what it was, within an instant my hand was in immense pain and I washed off the molten plastic from my thumb and forefinger.

I’m now typing this with my remaining fingers on my left hand and letting my right hand do the majority of the work. They say that bad luck comes in three’s so what’s next – am I going to loose my left arm altogether? I’m hoping that I can buck this trend of bad luck coming in threes and can’t help thinking that I’m owed some good luck for a change!

I’ve got two carrier bags full of rowans in my larder that need my attention today before I have two carrier bags full of rowan slush. I don’t eat meat so rowan jelly might not be the best plan for them – will they accompany nut roast, stuffed peppers? – Perhaps

I thought I’d make some rowan chutney, some apple and rowan sauce, maybe even some rowan jam or rowan wine. I can see myself getting used to the taste of rowan pretty quickly whatever I do with them. Can I say rowan a few more times? Rowan, rowan, rowan – it would appear so.