Blackberries

The blackberries on my allotment are already ripening beautifully.

I have picked several lots already to stew with apples and freeze for crumbles or pies later in the year. Notice the ladder of my friend, the neighbour from hell, leaning ominously against the privet bush. I was lucky enough to be there when he started cutting the hedge (why is it that ignorant men always cut hedges at the first sight of a sunny day, just when the blossom is about to burst, and when the bees need it most?). I told him he could trim the top but he wasn't to cut anything on my side. No doubt he thinks I'm mad, but I was thinking of the bees and the blackberries, so not so mad after all.

Further down the allotments, by the gate, some imbecile has trimmed the hedge so that a burgeoning crop of blackberries was cut off in its prime. Where do these idiots get their brains?