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Call them blackberries if you like, but where we come from people go 'brambling', to pick 'brambles'. But when I say 'people', I mean 'other people', not me. Because I'm weird, you see. Since about 15 years old, I have been bramble-phobic! I know how and when it started. [Hovis music, please]

I'd gone out brambling with my friend and for every fruit we put in our tubs, we popped on in our mouths. When our stomachs were full, my friend and I said our goodbyes and went home. I put my big tub of brambles on the draining board and went off and filled an hour or so with some basic, mundane, but highly important usual teenage stuff. When I went back into the kitchen I noticed the brambles were covered in maggots (probably not as many as I remember there being. I think time has exaggerated the images). Now, remember I said I'd been eating them? It freaked me out, to say the least, and when my parents came home a couple of hours later, they found me a quivering wreck, on the sofa - with my feet up (and if you knew that feet on the sofa were strictly forbidden, you would realize just how traumatized I was by the maggots).

Anyway, for the next 10 years or so I avoided brambles, blaming it on a fear of maggots. Then it slowly dawned on me, after coming across maggots, that I wasn't actually afraid of maggots. So off I went to pick some brambles. And couldn't. And in the end I had to admit it was a stupid, irrational fear of brambles. So, every year since, I have tried to take myself out to pick brambles. And every year, but one, I have failed to do it. The one year I succeeded was when I took my OH and children with me (this was a couple of years before my youngest was born). We picked a lot of brambles that year, and ended up throwing them all away. None of them have eaten brambles since.

Anyway, this year - THIS YEAR - I have done it. I have gone out, on my own, and picked exactly 100 brambles. Well, I picked more, but I only put 100 in my bag. I brought them home. Washed them, soaked them, washed them again, soaked them in salt water, rinsed them - twice, soaked them and rinsed them again before I would let my 4-year-old eat a few. The rest are in the freezer in the hope that I can pluck up the courage to eat some myself at a later date. But for now, I feel like I've been really brave.

No phobia is stupid, I have a friend who's absolutely terrified of clowns.

One step at a time as they say. Would you eat blackberry jam if you bought it?

You have been really brave...the whole thing with phobias is that they become irrational..so doing this is a big achievement!! Well done

thank you both, :)

Hedgehogpie wrote:Would you eat blackberry jam if you bought it?

No. My mother used to give me home-made blackberry jam, despite me telling her I couldn't eat it. It used to go straight in the bin. These days I make my own jam (from other fruits), but back when I used to buy jam, I avoided blackberry, including in the mixed fruit jams.

Well done you!!! My daughter, who is a gardener is terrified of frogs! likes toads! pbf.

Well done Rosey, it doesn't matter whether you eat them or not, I think it's the picking them that's important. One step at a time and if you are going to eat them, try jelly as everything has been strained out, maggots and all! (joke) They aren't all full of maggots believe me cos it's been mentioned on here before and I've soaked mine and looked for them and 9.99999 times out of 10 there are no nasties in them whatsoever. I won't do anything to plums or home grown apples without cutting into them to check for grubs and there are millions more yukkies in plums etc than in blackberries.

well done Rosendula

Well done you. It is one step at a time but you've taken by far the biggest one. If it's any help at all, are you sure they were maggots and not caterpillars?

Zoe

Yay well done to you! It makes me wonder if I should try and over come my fear of shower curtains!

Well they are horrid clingy and sometimes mouldy and smelly things aren't they Milims - and always trying to stick to you so I don't blame you!

It's not a stupid phobia, I think you have done brilliantly. Phobias of any kind are bloody awful. They can be debilitating and the fact that you managed to go out and pick the very thing that has caused you so much trouble is a reason for celebrating. Well done !!

Well done . The first time my boyfriend (now hubby) had a meal at our house and Mum cooked meat and three veg she accidentally included an extra meat portion - a green caterpillar on the cauliflower . Didn't scare him away though and no, he didn't eat it even though it was cooked!

spider8 wrote:Well done . The first time my boyfriend (now hubby) had a meal at our house and Mum cooked meat and three veg she accidentally included an extra meat portion - a green caterpillar on the cauliflower . Didn't scare him away though and no, he didn't eat it even though it was cooked!

There you go!! I knew cauliflower was a BaD vegetable

Thanks for the support everyone. The jelly idea is a good one, but having considered it I think I might as well make wine which is also strained and we get through a lot more of it .
I've been back and picked a few more this evening. I didn't have to soak and rinse them quite as much this time, although I was pretty thorough and got 3 maggots out (and didn't ). I think I may actually have done it.

I love the wine idea, it very pragmatically ticks all the right boxes. You can strain it to your utmost satisfaction and frankly no jelly is going to make you 'happy' in quite the way a drop of wine can.

Go for it and good luck!