The garden is full of raspberries, gooseberries and strawberries, and although the Sunday style mags tell me that I should be rustling up puddings and preserves galore, I find that real life intervenes, leaving me with a freezer full of fruit ready to be turned into light, fresh, sunny day dishes probably just at the point when the nights draw in and my stomach craves its seasonal helping of stodge.

However, yesterday, looking at some rapidly turning strawberries I chucked them in a pan and boiled for five minutes with half their weight of preserving sugar. This is fast jam for smearing on weekday morning toast and dolloping onto scones or through some natural yoghurt for an al fresco pudding. Made fast, eaten quicker, it will not keep long but who cares. It is very beautiful too, lipstick red and full of slightly squished whole fruit. Strangely, it smells almost artificially of strawberries and reminded us of 1970s Hartleys jam.

Went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince last night. Fellow Potties will not be disappointed but I expect anyone who hasn’t read the book (is there anybody who hasn’t…?) would be confused. The vast amount of cheap fat, sugar and e-numbers that were hurtling through me by the time the film came on only added to the excitement. I wouldn’t dream of eating a “white chocolate” mouse or foam teeth anywhere but the cinema and I do sometimes think that I should take my own supply of healthy snacks, but chomping on some unsalted brazil nuts or a banana would leave me feeling flatter than Ron Weasley after a double Potions lesson with Professor Snape.