We stopped for a while today at a delightful poppy field near Kidderminster, Worcestershire. It was a delight, and I thought how my mum would have loved to see the blowzy, nodding mass of poppies in all their slghtly rain-battered glory.

In honour of what would have been her 92nd birthday, I collected some English strawberries from the shops (I am waging a one-woman war on the tasteless Elsanta) as today was traditionally the opening of strawberry season in the family. If mum’s hadn’t ripened in our garden in ‘sunny Yorkshire’, we resorted then, as now, to the shop.

Dad also use to tease her that as she was born on the longest day, she’d been making up for the lost sleep of the short night ever since. Not morning people, mum and I…

The official opening of strawberry season!

My lovely mum, Jean.