Cherry Season

Our village, Montes Da Senhora, is famous for being a cherry growing region and this year (with more time on my hands I promised my friends, Filomena and Jose, I would help them with their cherry picking which they sell on to traders. The village has a traditional week-end Festival in the middle of May every year to celebrate the beginning of the season with the usual festivities going off such as the local dancing groups and singers, with games, selling of cherries, arts and crafts, plenty of food and the drinks flowing and ending with an all night DJ dance party for the younger members. Sadly the weekend of the Festa the weather was appalling, cold, windy and during the afternoon of the main festa day we had a thunderstorm!!!! (Why I wonder did that remind me of similar happenings in the UK, particularly at Bank Holidays and Festivals!!!) Unfortunately this year, owing to the more than usual amount of rainfall and lack of sunshine the cherries were not really ready in their normal abundance for the time of year. However, this last week has seen lots of sunshine and therefore the ripening of the cherries is well underway.

This morning I went to the cherry orchard of my friends to help out and got stuck into picking.



Picking the cherries will be ongoing for weeks now until they have finished ripening so all that remains now is to make loads of cherry jam, pies, crumbles, vodka cherry, etc., and watch the waistline expand even further !!!!!!!