Spring is here , sun is shining, days are longer – so get out the bunting, dust off your shoes and rejoice in the best season for running.
The weather has been kind these past few days making for a lovely Easter holiday weekend and so nice to be able to run after work in daylight and back in the Dell after months of dark nights street running.
Right now wild garlic or ransomes are growing everywhere in the Dell giving our runs an extra sensory dimension. The joyous whiff of wild garlic is strongest on a damp morning, or like this evening when a warm, quite humid day had released the wonderful waft.
Wild garlic – Alium Ursinium – or ‘ransomes’ grow freely in woodlands,and are all over the banks of the Dell path. It is quite a fashionable ingredient these days, gracing the menus of the finest restaurants I believe. They can be used to flavour all sorts of dishes in much the same way as you might use regular garlic or onions – the flavour is not as pronounced as the woodland smell might suggest, and the bright green leaves have a more subtle chive taste. I did add some to a roast chicken dinner last year and very tasty it was too.
One of these days I might pause in my run to forage.
