My sister has a beautiful home in Melbourne. And the olive trees outside her house are even more beautiful. Laden with fruit of different varieties, falling on the ground, begging to be 'saved' and preserved and eaten.

It's hard to know what is PC in regards to city foraging. There must be rules. Can you harvest from the trees in front of your house? Can you ask neighbours if they intend to harvest and pick theirs? How much is too much? And should there be an exchange of some kind even if they don't intend to use them themselves?

After agonising over all of these questions, we asked a neighbour or two, grabbed our baskets and picked enough for my sister's household and my own (inner thought - can you ever have enough olives for a household??). I admit my olives flew home with me which is hardly low travel miles. As a side note - my sister then had a bag of olives gifted by another neighbour - so I don't think we breached any social taboos around city olive harvesting.

And MONTHS later they are ready. Worth every day that I waited.