Must Be Summer . . .

. . . because it is raspberry time.  From now until Christmas my second nephew will be occupied with these delicious soft fruit.  We stood in the processing shed and talked while he stirred raspberry jam which he sells in his farm shop.  On the sorting table were four Afghan women taking the fruit from wooden trays like this one and making up plastic punnets of fruit to sell.  My nephew bought the trays second hand forty years ago.  I am pretty sure these are what the pickers use in the field.  Over the years this market garden has employed local high school students, local women, and immigrants of all nationalities.  Some years ago an Afghan man would come with the women but today I noticed they were driving themselves.  
We saw my sister in Burwood Hospital and compared to when I last saw her ten days ago she has made surprising progress.  The medics now say there is no damage to her lungs from the Covid infection.  She is still weak from being bedridden for a month but the outcome has been more positive than I would have thought.