Where do the elderflowers grow?

And the wild rose? What about the fat hen and samphire? So often I have imagined a life huddled around a fire, wrapped in blankets and clutching mugs of homemade coffee ground from dandelion roots. Everyone together, living outdoors in harmony with all around them.

Sparkling summer drink with elderflowers

Elderflowers are prolific in Britain. You see them on road sides, woods, hedgerows and waste places. The pretty white flowers which appear in May - June have a strong scent, sweet and floral and are used in many ways. They can be battered lightly, fried and dipped in sugar to be eaten whole, tossed into a salad if they are particularly good specimens, made into champagne, which is actually alcoholic without the need for all that equipment and made into a cordial, which is what they are most widely used for.