Wild about garlic

Nicoline has two new neighbours. A young couple who, Nicoline pointed out, are newer Trosa inhabitants than even us. Mind you, Ebba has relatives in Trosa so she’s visited before. Anyway, they were quite keen to come out and pick ramslök today, which was when I met them.

I’d already walked over to Christina to pick the girls up, managing to avoid the rain that greeted me when I woke first thing. The clouds were definitely threatening and there were a few isolated drops but, the heavy clouds managed to move off, leaving us dry.

I wasn’t sure about taking the dogs with us but was convinced after Nicoline shot down each of my reasons why I should leave them at home. So Emma was dumped on Victor’s lap while Freya sat on mine and we took off up to Tureholms slott. This was where Nicoline said there would be acres of foraging. She wasn’t wrong.

Given it’s quite close (Nicoline reckoned I could easily walk there, though I suggested I’d not feel like walking back) there was just time to teach everyone a new Australian word (cack) and give them a not quite glowing review of yesterday’s concert.

The car parked and dogs released, we then headed up a mud sodden, horseshoe ploughed, tree draped track to the happy hunting ground that was our destination. There was a lot of wild garlic, ripe for the picking and we quickly set to.

Obviously, given we’d stopped, Emma decided she would convince Ebba to throw bits of wood for her. Freya just wandered around, inspecting various bits of green.

It wasn’t long before we all have vast quantities of leaves and headed back to the car, scrambling back over fallen trees (“It was standing last time I was here,” Said Nicoline) and sploshing through deep, mud puddles. Nicoline even threw a bit of wood for Emma given she kept dropping it right in front of her.

Back at the car, the girls were demoted from laps to the boot, and we headed back home.

All in all, a wonderful hour of foraging, which has provided the essential ingredient for ramslökssoppa. This will be the first course for Thursday’s all important birthday dinner.

There’s nothing like a bit of spring foraging to make one feel more Swedish.