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Life is like a bowl of cherries

Life is like a bowl of cherries

Author: By Jo Rushby
Date: 2025-11-26

Merry, merry,

Take a cherry;

Mine are sounder,

Mine are rounder,

Mine are sweeter.

For the eater

When the dews fall.

And you'll be fairies all (Robert Graves)

It's that time of year in South Africa. Plumped up, for weeks we gorge, nothing more satisfying than a bowl of delicious orbs. Not too sweet, a natural wonder. I can't get enough, de-stoning and making thimblefuls of dark, blood juice that stain the tongue and make me wonder if I'm growing fangs.

A clafoutis of cherries - a classic French batter pudding where garnet coloured juice oozes up through the cracks like a thermal spring, silkiness plays around the mouth.

This small ruby fruit and me go back. To the Balkans and fruit gardens of Bulgaria. I lived there for a few years, the first marshmallow blooms of the cherry season heralding summer: at the markets, the carmine coloured fruit piled high in pyramids, trees dripping with fruit. Picnics, days on the beach, a brown bag of cherries at my side.

I scan the shelves at the beginning of November. I'm at my favourite veggie shop in Umgeni Road. The array of produce is bewildering. Kerala. Bhindi. Pawpaws the size of rugby balls...But no cherries. And then the following week, there they are. Glistening in the sun. A whole box. I sit on the promenade munching, reminiscing. Gorgeous. Gorging.

I skip through the day. You see, cherries not only signify prosperity and fresh beginnings. They also bring frivolity, a child-like joy. Like their shape, around the world, they hold meaning. In Japan, the wood from a cherry tree symbolises purity and abundance of love. The mother of Buddha is said to have been supported by a cherry tree.

But above all, cherries are the fruit of the libido, and so, there is no such thing as an overdose. How did Pablo Neruda put it:

'I will bring you flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.'

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