The Hoffmann Plague by Tony Littlejohns

Author:Tony Littlejohns [Littlejohns, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian
Published: 2018-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

The first two weeks of July were very busy for them, harvesting and preserving the cherries from the area. Many were a little under-ripe and rather tart, but they thought that if they left them to fully ripen on the trees they might lose most of them to the birds. Some trees were easily accessible from the road or from the front gardens of houses, while others were located in back gardens and involved climbing over walls and gates to gain access to them. They used leaf-collecting rakes sometimes for the fruits that were out of reach. On two occasions Jane was reduced to laughter watching Jamie struggle to climb the trees and shake the branches, while cherries rained down on her. After the second time he came down with his face covered in scratches from branches, looking rather annoyed.

She stifled a laugh behind her hand and said ‘Oh, look at my poor baby’s face!’ then proceeded to kiss it better, trying not to smirk.

‘Okay, clever-clogs, you can go up the next one and see how you get on!’

She proved a much more nimble climber than him and came down afterwards without a scratch on her. He said ‘Hmph! Beginner’s luck!’ She just smiled smugly and stuck her tongue out at him.

Processing the cherries for preserving was extremely labour-intensive and took them ages. The ones that were to be dried had to be pitted and halved. They lowered the drying racks in the conservatory by their ropes and spread the fruit out over the mesh, before raising them again. The racks were completely full of cherries for two weeks. Once dried, which took around five days, they resembled large raisins. They had lost some of their tartness in the drying process and became nicer to eat, and were packed away in airtight containers and stored for future use. They preserved others in alcohol, using the cheap vodka they’d got from the warehouse, and some were made into compotes and sealed in preserving jars. Those cherries destined for alcohol preserving only needed pitting and went in whole, which saved a lot of time.

On top of the cherry harvesting and processing they also had to make regular trips to check the rabbit snares they had in various locations, which then involved cooking and preserving any they caught and making jerky also. They found they could speed up the jerky-making process by drying the meat in the Rayburn’s warming oven with the door left open a crack. Another regular task was to collect the salt from the containers in the garden as the sea water evaporated and then refill them. All-in-all it was a pretty hectic time for them, involving long days.

There hadn’t been much heavy rainfall during June, so they took water from the pond in the garden and also had to make regular trips to the lake at Egerton Park to fill water containers. Although the duck population there had diminished and those that were left were more wary, they managed sometimes to get one or two with the shotguns.

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