Illustration Friday - Summer

Strawberry jam

This week's Illustration Friday topic is Summer.
Growing up in Scotland's Clyde valley meant summer fruit and jam - summer started with strawberries.
Other fruits were black and red currants, gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries and brambles [blackberries].
Many of these fruits grew wild near our house and we would spend hours collecting boxes of them to eat with cream, make pies and give to our gran to make jam.
The smell of simmering fruit and sugar is the very essence of summer to me and goes with the white nights and playing outdoors till 10 or 11pm [Scotland never gets very dark in summer]
Of course those were the days when kids were expected to be outside from morning till night, only returning for meals etc. Snacks were jeelly pieces [jam sandwiches] or pokes of sugar and raw rhubarb straight from the garden. Delicious!