TREASURE TROVE

When I discover something like this I get childishly excited. Nothing can prick the joy of the unexpected discovery. I am beaming.
I rarely spend any time at all in our meadow, though every time I enter its wild acres, it is time well rewarded. Today, in an utterly blue sky, three buzzards spread their white wing feathers wide and circled and cried at each other. A pair is commonplace. A threesome less so. And I virtually never see them above the meadow, because the rookery in the tall wood which fringes it on its south side contains enough avian hooligans to scare away pretty much any buzzard daring to come anywhere near. Oh, yes. Rook v. Buzzard. No contest. Rook every time. But the rooks were away, doing dodgy things, nicking stuff, raiding others, conning, scamming, roughing someone up, taking the piss, as only rooks can.
I stood awestruck, following the magnificent birds of prey cruising in the cloudless air. Stalling eastward into wind, then coursing in high downwind circles, they filled my attention. So that when I eventually turned my eyes more towards a normal horizontal, I almost missed the trees and their fruit. I'd never seen them before, but there they were, just at the edge of the rookery, and most probably established there by and because of the rooks themselves.
Bullaces. Blue, velvety, luscious looking treasure. For a moment I had a deadly nightshade moment - was I mistaking them? But I tentatively touched my finger into one, and then dipped it on my tongue. No mistaking that unique flavour. Then I was all over them, gathering the entire lot. And sucking quite a few there and then.
It was a discovery of treasure. It was a moment like on an African game drive when you suddenly see a big cat. Or a tiger in India. Wild. Natural. Nothing to do with you and all your works. Nothing you could or did make happen. Just wild England at her finest.
Tonight I squeezed out every stone, both my hands up to their wrists in bullace goo. An almost sexual thrill. And then I combined the goo with unreasonable amounts of sugar.
Tomorrow, on my toast, I will have butter and bullace jam. A treat which takes me back to childhood  and which I can't remember enjoying since.
My hands are stained. My skin is torn. There's bark and dust in my hair and eyes.
I am smiling.