My jacket is ripped, my T-shirt stained purple and I've lost one of my favourite earrings, yet I remain a very happy bunny.

In my scratched and torn hands I hold the reason for my happiness, a big, big Pyrex bowl overflowing with juicy, ripe blackberries.

And I picked them all myself ... well, The Mother and I picked them all ourselves but I reckon mine are the larger, juicier berries.

Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, will soon be with us - but for me the mellow fruitfulness has already arrived.

I love blackberries, especially when I've picked pounds of the beauties and they haven't cost me a penny - not unless you count a ruined T-shirt and bare ear lobes.

Come September, every September, I'm off into the local woods, The Mother in tow, both of us clutching an assortment of Pyrex bowls and dishes.

Now let's get one thing clear: Blackberrying is not for wimps. Unless you've got the hide of a rhino, those brambles will tear your skin to pieces as you reach in to harvest the crop.

Yes, there will be blood on your hands as well as purple berry juice.

Brambles will tear through shirts, jackets and jeans and if they don't get you (highly unlikely) then their close companions, the stinging nettles, will.

Arachnophobes should also note that the most tempting berries can often be seen tucked away behind some vast spider's web and that the occupant will invariably be at home.

But hey! Who said this would be easy? Blackberrying is not just about getting the most berries in your bowl, it's about the challenge of locating and picking the most inaccessible fruit, those blackberries that hang tantalisingly out of reach - unless you happen to be 7ft tall.

"Be careful!" The Mother shouts as I climb a steep bank and reach upwards, through brambles, nettles and not-so itsy bitsy spiders, to pick some choice berries. It's all very Indiana Jones-ish.

While I am on the high ground, she is working the lowlands, a couple of feet down from me. "There's absolutely no need to go up there," she shouts again. "There are perfectly good berries here, nearer the ground."

"I don't doubt it," I reply "but the nearer the ground they are the more likely they are to have been peed on by some dog, or even a fox."

"Well just be careful," she repeats. "You never know what you might tread on in those thick brambles. There might be adders or grass snakes in there."

"Or dead bodies," I mutter, out of earshot.

Some 40 minutes later we have filled our bowls with berries and The Mother is ready to leave.

"In under an hour these are going to be in a blackberry and apple crumble," I say and the very thought starts my mouth watering.

Back home, in the kitchen, we start rinsing our berries in a colander.

"I can almost smell that crumble now," I say.

The Mother looks uneasy: "That's not what I can smell," she says. "I told you to be careful in the brambles, that you never know what you might tread on."

The realisation of what I've done hits me too. While The Mother continues to rinse the blackberries I'm out in the back garden hosing down the soles of my shoes. Yuck!

Right now, repeat after me: "Blackberrying is not for wimps."