T’S possible to feel cheated by spring. It’s supposed to be when everything begins again; there are lambs in the fields, snowdrops in the woods and goslings are marched up and down the riverbank by their dutiful parents. However, it isn’t a time of abundance in the way that autumn is. In late September, everything comes to a rich culmination: the last of the grain is brought in, salmon run up the rivers to spawn, squirrels scamper madly around London parks and busily bury nuts. For many, the pleasurable business of pickling begins. All creatures great and small know that
