My first job, while I was still at high school, was picking strawberries at the market garden down the side road beside where I lived.

Summertime!  Berries!  Yay!

It meant rising while it was still dark at around 5 am and biking (on my brother’s bike) or walking down the gravel road to the Vander Hulst’s.  I knew where to pick up the containers from the shed, and just as it was breaking dawn I was ready to go, filling up those containers with big, fat, fresh, red juicy strawberries.  We had usually finished all the rows by mid to late morning.

After some time, I also progressed to picking raspberries.  It took a lot longer to fill those containers, but wasn’t quite so backbreaking….standing up instead of bending over.

And then I was promoted to working in the packing shed at a different venue, packing them neatly and attractively in the punnets, covering with cellophane and preparing for the market.

I worked hard for my pocket money, but I enjoyed being out in the fresh air, getting a great tan in the summer months.  We didn’t pick when it was raining, but if there was a break in the wet weather it was all go, and we’d get rather wet from the water on the leaves and branches, or any long grass around.

Once I left school and went to Polytech and onto a secretarial job, I naturally had to give it up.  But I am really thankful for those early years of working which taught me some great work ethics.

Maybe that’s why I love berries so much still.  Strawberries…raspberries….blueberries…blackberries…loganberries….boysenberries….yummmm!

Full of antioxidants and so good for you.  Delish just plain with a light dusting of icing sugar…or with icecream and lashings of cream, or piled high on a pavlova…..  Mostly I just love them FULLSTOP!