The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
DAMSON IN DISTRESS
Shetland is in a pickle while I’m in a jam. I’ ll refrain from mentioning the state of the rest of the country but suffice to say the condiment conundrum sums up Fyne Place this week. Despite torrential rain that again threatened to turn the house into an impromptu duck pond, and days when it barely became daylight, I made a socially distanced visit to Granny Grunt’s garden. No one in the village knows how she got her unflattering moniker. Some claim it’s because her maiden name was Grant while others say that her late husband’s forename was Grant. He died during the Falklands War in mysterious circumstances, not apparently in the South Atlantic as a Royal Marine commando but in his day job as a freelance milkman near Lossiemouth.
Locals say he was spying on the airfield during early-morning deliveries, passing secrets to the Argentinians, and was bumpedoff by the SAS on a back road near Duffus. It’s said suspicions were raised because he often ate corned beef and apparently once asked for empanadas in the local Co-op. In truth, most think he stepped from his vehicle to relieve himself and fell into a water-filled ditch in the darkness. It’s all rubbish, but rumours persist.
No matter, the general view is that Granny Grunt is so-called because when she’s wound up, her voice becomes a babble of barely intelligible guttural grunts. Underestimate her at your peril, though. Few folk can name the current and previous home secretaries; explain the intricacies of leg-spin bowling; fix the gears on a bicycle; name the opening track on Little Mix’s first album; cross-stitch without a magnifying glass; or make those red-leaved pot-plants that people give you at Christmas keep growing healthily when most others wilt by the middle of January. She can and I like her a lot and often help in her lovely garden.
The fact that I was there in rain that saw me kitted out like the Loch Ness lifeboat crew who rescued a wounded Catalina flying boat last weekend was entirely due to enterprising Shetlander, Donna Polson. She was not responsible for the problems with the Catalina, I hasten to add. Apparently, it was engine failure that prevented it from taking off, leaving it drifting helplessly until the splendid wee Drumnadrochit-based lifeboat came to its rescue and towed it to safety in Urquhart Bay. Mind you, I suspect that it wasn’t engine failure but actually the actions of a kenspeckle triple-hump-backed monster that objected to the noisy intrusion on its watery parish and grabbed it by the tail to teach it a lesson. Still, back to Ms Polson who has been wowing Shetland and beyond with her ranges of homemade preserves, chutneys and condiments under her own brand, Whalsay Made.
She has seen demand for her products, made in her home kitchen, take a gigantic leap in the past year. It’s certainly a bigger leap than the Catalina made. When I read about the wonderful Whalsay success story, I decided there and then that I wanted to make some jam of my own and I knew just where to find the fruit. Granny Grunt has a prolific damson tree and although most of the fruit is now past its best, she was more than happy for me to pick what I could from what was left. It wasn’t a lot but I rushed it home, got out my jam pan and soon Fyne Place smelled like the sort of perfume I imagine Mary Berry wears.
Later that afternoon, I bottled the fruity damson jam in a couple of large jars and let it cool before putting it in the cupboard. Next day, as I delved into that cupboard to find a packet of biscuits, I forgot about the jam.
As I pulled, both jars fell and smashed on the kitchen’s stone floor, scattering glass through every potential spoonful. The whole batch was binned. “You look like a damson in distress,” quipped Mrs F, albeit sympathetically.
I wonder if such a damson disaster has ever befallen Donna Polson? It would be a shattering experience for anyone. Looks like it’s shop-bought jam for now, unless I can get to Whalsay soon, that is.