Mulberry and White Currant Jelly

I usually write about all my preserving on my other blog: Mrs Mace Preserves, but I thought I would sneak this one in here.  Why so?  The reason is that this one has a much more personal angle to it.

One evening last week, just as I was preparing supper, I had a call from a friend in Warwick.  A few minutes later, Janice arrived with a tub of mulberries.  The picture Janice painted of her husband picking these mulberries, with juice running down his arms etc was as bright as the stains one gets on clothes when picking fruit...

As I was a bit tired after dinner, I was about to pop the fruit in the freezer, when I saw the small sample of white currants brought by another friend from Warwick the previous week, when Penny and little Grandson Daniel had come to visit.  I had had a taste, but I felt that there wasn't much flavour.  Yes they were very pretty and I know they are high in pectin, but that is all.  So the white currants came out, got combined with the mulberries and the following morning I made up three very small pots of jelly.  Three very small pots of Jelly, one for each of us.

I know the flavour is delicious, as I had the teaspoon or so left over in some yogurt.  Whilst I made up the jelly, I thought about my two friends and how they had thought of me and brought me some of their produce.  And when I was washing up...yes all those pots, sieves etc, I also thought of the red staining that Janice needs to contend with each year.  At least picking the fruit gives some lovely morsels to eat, and less fruit on the ground to get trodden into shoes etc...