Sweet and sour

One of the nice things about living where we do is the time people have for you. Its almost impossible to pass by without engaging in conversation. Some miserable ramblers try it now and then but I soon force them to break their vow of silence.
Its a common occurrence round here to find that the person you are talking to is either related to, or a friend of the last person you met or spoke of. Tonight for example I was chatting to the Oracle as I dropped off our monthly bin bag at the bottom of the hill. As he covered a great many topics at breakneck speed I found he had been at the same funeral yesterday as a colleague of mine from work, he knew their mother, father, cousins, their jobs, addresses and pretty much their life story. Small world.
As we lent on the five bar gate watching the sunset and putting the world to rights I happened to mention that I had recently walked over the hills behind which the sun was about to set.
He told me that years ago he used to walk up there to pick Winberries, small Blueberry like fruits that used to be very popular summer fruits in rural hill communities. Unlike Blueberries they grow on small scrub like bushes and collecting them is back breaking work for what most now consider little reward. They are in fact delicious and worth the effort, but anyway I digress.
He told me how as a child he and his friends used to go up onto the hills to gather the precious fruits to sell in the market. They were usually beaten to the best patches by an old crone like woman who was an expert berry picker. They would look on with envy at her full baskets and wonder if they would ever get the better of her.
They thought their time had come when one day they followed in her wake walking miles in the summer heat, picking over the remnants trying to fill their empty baskets. She had over a dozen dotted around the hill brimful of shiny black berries when they found an enormous fresh patch bursting with ripe fruit.
This was their chance, her baskets were full, she would have to leave them to it. In the words of the Oracle, "No word of a lie she took her sweaty drawers off, them bloomer types and tied a knot in each leg and filled em, took the lot! There must have been pounds and pounds in them and then she went off in to town and sold the blooming lot."
He paused for breath and turned to face me exclaiming "Do you know, I wonder to this day, who the hell ate them!" He grimaced and looked across the valley back at the hills, "Pounds and pounds in them there was, took her hours to fill em."
There was a few moments silence between us before he added "The tiny things they wear nowadays they'd fill in a minute!"