This is not a punnet of strawberries

It is a box of memories. Growing up as a small child in London only 6 miles from Nelson's Column, with a smallholding across the road, and strawberries in summer. Buying strawberries in season from market stalls. Living in rural Kent as soon as I could afford to pay my own way, waiting for the season, waiting for the fruit stalls at the roadside, pacing through the crops in turn. Always the scents. The berries, the currants, the plums. the apples and the pears, then the hops. The smells from the oast houses, brewing your own beer from hops grown next door.

If you ever saw Darling Buds of May, it was drawn from life. That world is gone forever, swamped by urbanisation. So we moved back to our roots in Scotland, for a more civilised life. And here on the Black Isle, we have the berries, the plums, the apples ... the joy of the seasons and the scents of youth. So, not just a punnet of strawberries.