Plum Compote

Flopped into the middle of hot porridge or plain yoghurt, poached plums start most of my early autumn weekdays. I loved them out of a tin at school and love them now pulled from the tree, the juice dripping from my chin, savouring that slight crunch of a lazy wasp that failed to vacate an unobserved hole. The most famous plum I ever ate belonged to Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, snatched off a branch overhanging his neighbour’s field where I was fishing. Sadly, its taste was not as remarkable a