Sunday 5 September 2010

Apple Harvest

Sunday 5th September


Day 137


My husband is perched high up in the apple tree. You wouldn’t know he was there - the leaves and branches camouflage him so well. Except every now and again you’ll hear a shout followed immediately by a thud and a splat as another apple whizzes past his nose and lands on the grass. These are the ones that escape - they are usually bad anyway. He has a Marks and Spencer carrier bag attached to his belt and as he picks, it bulges out with the weight of his cargo.


When it’s full he climbs back down the ladder and brings it over to me. I’m crouched on the lawn surrounded by an array of large boxes - sorting the apples by size and colour and ripeness - small green ones, medium redish ones, big scarlet ones and a lot of stung and bruised ones. The bags and bags keep on arriving till I run out of boxes and I feel like that little Dutch boy with his finger in the dam wall. Luckily we have a shed which can hold this waterfall of apples thundering down from our tree.


The invasion of green tomatoes and plums last month feels like a mere shower compared to this fruit ocean today. I just have to remember that they are the best apples in all the world for making tart tatin - my husband’s favourite dessert.

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