The story this week is a 'snapshot' from Vancouver in Canada: taken in an overgrown, bushy area in one of the many parks. Strolling along with my daughters I notice clumps of large berries growing in a tangle of vines. They are blackberries, and five minutes later my tongue is a deep purple colour, there is a juice stain on my shirt, and I'm grimacing in pain from more than a few deep scratches on my arms and hands. But I'm very very happy.

These delicious berries grow all over Vancouver, anywhere that a few square metres of space has been left alone by the parks maintenance crews, and the end of summer is the perfect time to sample them. Colour and size are your main guides; the small red ones are not ready ... those that have gone black but are still quite hard are not ready ... but the big, soft, juicy purple-black ones are perfect!

If you can reach them, that is. For no sooner does any particular berry reach this prime condition, than it is plucked off by the first person who passes by. Easily reached areas of each bush are thus always 'picked clean'. As you stand there looking for ripe berries you can always see many just waiting to be plucked ... but they are always just that fraction too high, or too deep within the bush. And those thorns! Long, hard, and very sharp! But we discovered a good way to quickly accumulate a handful of delicious berries - work in a group. On father's shoulders a light-weight daughter reaches up to 'unpicked' territory, and passes the fruit down to waiting hands.

These berries should be in the tourist guidebooks!