So I bounced up on her bed reminded her that no-one gets a body like Jessica Ennis by lying horizontal all morning, and that anyway she'd promised me we'd go on a cloudberry hunt today.
Now to be honest with you, although Gail can get excited about picking what apparently is a rare delicacy, I personally am not to fussed about berries of any description. My interest was only sparked when I learned that to find a cloudberry in NE Scotland you have to climb up to about 2000 ft and then you also need a bog, and well, that sounds like a mighty fine walk doesn't it, especially the boggy bit....
Anyway, before too long we'd driven forty miles inland and were climbing a hill called Morven. From on high, I surveyed the scene.
Of course, being Scotland, it didn't take long to locate a boggy area...
I veered off the track and went to investigate.
"Look Gail, see the little red thing, is that when we're after?"
"Let's have a closer look."
Well apparently this was a cloudberry, and I was dead chuffed with myself, until Gail told me that the red berries are not yet ripe and that we needed to find some golden orange coloured ones.
So I bounced around the bog a bit more, until I spotted this.
And for once Gail was delighted and full of praise. "Perfect Bertie just perfect, this is even more exciting than the Olympics".
Well, readers might have their own opinion about THAT.
Now Gail is telling me all about how cloudberries have a unique and intense flavour and are chock full of vitamins and anti-oxidants and stuff and so are super-healthy.
But I have my doubts that the dessert she made when we got home, based on a Norwegian recipe (whipped cream, sugar and just a sprinkling of the precious cloudberries) was going to help her perform like Jessica Ennis any time soon.
