Wild Strawberries
Teaching English has proved a good way to explore parts of Lyon that I otherwise wouldn’t see. Classes are conducted at the clients’ workplaces, and so I often find myself in industrial estates and business parks on the outskirts of the city.
It was on one of these industrial estates that I discovered wild strawberries. They were growing by the road on the edge of a vacant factory lot, hidden amongst a tangle of undergrowth. I watched over the weeks as the flowers turned to berries, and the berries ripened from green to red.
The plants were not prolific, but I picked the few berries that were ready; less than ten in total over two weeks. They were tiny, and fibrous rather than juicy, but definitely strawberries.
