Picking peas and eating fresh

Many, many years ago, too many to really want to say (at least 40!) I took a job at a local farm in Worcester for the three months of my summer break from university. This way I would supplement my grant with whatever I could earn by picking fruit and vegetables. 

Where I worked was nearly all fruit so we got to eat, I mean pick, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blackcurrant, red currants and of all things, peas by the 25 kg bag.

 Mange tout or snow peas weren't in fashion so we stripped fully mature peas from the vine; my aim was to pick twelve bags at least a day.

At first I was slow, I had to develop the knack and from watching those around I quickly became as fast as them. 

At 7am we would arrive at a field, find our rows (two each picker) and we'd start. By 4pm we were on the wagon to be dropped off around Malvern so we could walk home. It was a hard day's work but it kept me fit and each day I would bring home my takings to go into my tin.

What triggered this memory?

My garden today. Slowly I am creating my own organic vegetable patch where plants are grown in pots and I can 'enjoy eating the fruits of them' quoting The Orb.

This morning I picked a snow pea and crunched on its freshness.

Nope, there's nothing quite like it.