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The final Tottenham trip took place on 27th August, 2024.
What begain as a few sporadic experiments with home winemaking in the early 1990s turned into something far more signifficant. A pass-time as big as amateur radio. Four wild fruits were used...
• WIld Plums
• Blackberries
• Elderberries (my favourite)
• Sloes - late in season
It came into its own truely in my undergraduate years. The summer recess fitted quite well with the picking season. It started after exams in June finishing just after autumn semester. The early semester was not busy for technology students. Imagine, alcohol for almost no cost (only sugar was added) was a godsend for a student. And the lady I was with liked it too!
And it is worth pointing out that it endured for the remainder of my years in Cambridge, until 2005 when I had also gained a masters degree. A move to London (I was supposed to get a PhD and go into research brought me to London - I was unable to complete it due to lack of funding. To keep a long story short, one key site in Cambridge was turned into a guided busway by then. But in London, alternative sites were found, but I later found my wife working in the first job I managed to get after being forced to withdraw from the PhD for reasons related to financial fining. And sadly, it turned out that she was abusive and despised the whole idea of me having any interests of my own.
Sadly, she turned out to hate all my hobbies and interests. She just wanted me to be a 24/7 money making work robot. And my picking, like all my interests she tried to exterminate. But she had badly underestimated me, and my shear dogged survival instinct and tenecity. If I was able to get into university against such odds, ignoring my family branding me a failure, I had ways and means to ensure that my hobbies, interests and social connections would survive come what may...
This is the story of how I got into university against the odds.
She would harass me with phone calls during picking trips (and any social enguagements too!), give me grief when boiling up the fruit to obtain the juice, and later, following a serious incident in 2012 (Documented in my book, "When the Nightmare Came" I put a lock on the cupboard used for brewing too.
My book will be published after I leave the UK for good.
Like my other interests it survived ten years of abuse. And more besides. Yet ironically, my daughters enjoyed coming on the picking trips and helping me pick. In the early days, I would have them in their pram with me while their mother was at work, usually making a visit to a park on the way. Indeed, my younger daughter was taught to pick blackberries before her sister was born, and the was about 2 1/2 years old by then! And she knew I only wanted ripe black berries, and how to avoid the thorns.
During the summer, my abusive wife took my daughters away to Ivory Coast (and almost got us fined because they did not return to school in time for the beginning of term; I had no say in the matter despite being their father!). This meant however that I was able to have 7 long weeks of unmolested social life, picking and even - what a luxury(!) being able to get ready for work without suffering abuse.
And, this year I organised things at the peak of the season when most things were simultaniously ripe....
• Monday, Waterlow & Elthorne parks for plums
• Tuesday free unless weather forced changes
• Wednesday, Parkland walk for blackberries
• Thursday, a new site for blackberries
• Friday was for meeting my friends at the end of the week
• Saturday, Tottenham Marshes for elderberries - the biggest trip of all
• Sunday, Palmers Green for blackberries
This worked well until she returned in September and the abuse resumed.
I seperated from my ex wife in September 2016, and this is a horror story in itself. But my outside interests survived this. I needed the diversion this offered from many traumatic events in my life.
But the years in the abusive environment had taken their toll. I had begun to drink more and more as a coping mechanism throughout the marriage, and it got worse in the aftermath with the CMS harassing me (I tried to kill myself as a rasult); and when I was robbed at knifepoint in April 2018 and almost lost an eye (a second knife robbery came in July 2019) my drinking escalated out of control. I also was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. And by then, I was drinking far too much, far too often for reasons quite unrelated to the homemade wine which as available only in the summer.
Things came to a head in August 2020
At this time, I was diagnosed with liver cirhossis and had to stop all drinking. And by now, I had a (very beautiful) reason to go on living.
Gloria had no surviving family at all. Except, that is, for me!
The picking continued in reduced form for a few more years - although I could no longer drink the wine myself I did make some more for others after this time. Indeed, this hobby had survived much: the relocation, abusive marriage, the aftermath, a suicide attempt and even my being hospitalised. But there is one change coming that it will not survive.
Shanxi Normal University in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China
The fact that I am about to leave the UK for good brought about what nothing else ever could. Leaving the UK was on the cards since 2019, and it is only through health probems, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial problems and other issues have forced me to postpone my leaving the UK and the aftermath of the abuse a number of times. But the need to work overseas in order to save to get my new life underway means that coincidently, this pass-time will be a thing of the past. Besides, climate change appears to be making it ever harder to get a good yield, and the farmers report many issues related to climate change, and that is their livelihood.
My plan is to leave for China where I will be teaching at Shanxi Normal University in Taiyuan. In China, living costs are low and the scourge of the CMS will be eradicated from my life forever. And this is all to save for joining the ladies and beginning a new life, in Burkina Faso. If and when I have the time for a new pass-time, I wonder what will take the place of the picking season? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. Leaving to begin a new life will bring about what years of abuse and its aftermath never could. It is truely fitting that the final trip of all time happened in splended weather the day before my work visa was ready for collection. The date was August 27th, 2024.