Blackberries arrive in the lanes at the beginning of September, almost overnight, and for two or three weeks the hedges are dripping with them. You can't walk past without stopping. That's how this starts: a carrier bag, a scratched forearm, fingers stained purple, a vague plan to do something with the haul before it spoils.

Bramble jelly is what to do. Not jam, jelly. The seeds of a blackberry are too many and too hard to live in a jam without getting between your teeth. Strained through muslin, they vanish entirely, and what's left is a dark, glossy preserve that tastes of nothing but the fruit. It catches the light when you hold a spoonful up to the window. It catches the light through the side of the jar. That's worth the patience the muslin asks of you.

The apple is the trick. A single cooking apple, chopped roughly and thrown in skin and all, lends enough pectin to set the whole pan. No need for jam sugar or shop-bought pectin or anything that pretends to help. The fruit does it itself, the way it's been done in country kitchens for as long as anyone has been picking brambles.

I made some last weekend. I wrote it down in the notebook: "Brambles. Sunday. Rain coming in. Four jars." One of them is open now and I'm putting it on toast for breakfast tomorrow. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate, or a warm slice of toast, in front of someone you care about.