On Gluttony

The fig trees are in fruit. Not one tree-full, but the whole lot - seven large trees all producing ripe fruit all at once.

Eat me

I can eat a lot of figs - but really, this is gluttony. So we share them out with the birds, the donkeys and sheep (who take those they can reach) and with Papilio machaon, appropriately called the Swallow Tail Butterfly; gluttony comes from gluttire, to swallow.

Papilio machaon - I'd Swallow my Tail

So far, I have bottled them and made jam - in a moment of madness I made five separate jams from the fruit of five separate trees. Next comes chutney. And then really, no more figs thank you, till next year.