In the middle of Bayswater industrial area, surrounded by panel beaters and car wreckers, is a mulberry tree. This forgotten tree produces the biggest, juiciest, sweetest mulberries I have ever eaten. So every year, around October, I drag my Dad down to the tree to pick mulberries.
There is something I love about this mulberry tree. It presses against a rusty barbed-wire fence. Old tyres and car parts, a broken solar heater and other random pieces of rubbish littered round its trunk. A white ceramic dog keeps watch underneath the canopy. A string of fake pearls sits regally around its neck. An old Mercedes van gets lost beneath cobwebs and rust. Each year I return I feel like I'm visiting an old friend. Just popping in to say hi, you know, see how its going. And each year it brings more fruit than the last.
Even though my clothes and shoes and hands turn purple...and despite sometimes fighting with the odd snail...and getting covered in dust and cobwebs from clambering over old wheelbarrows and bits of wood to get to the best berries...I will still come back next year.
We got a big haul this year. And for his help I promised my Dad a Mulberry Cheesecake. So stay tuned because a Mulberry Cheescake recipe aint far away!
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