Scrumping

Nick called us and asked if we wanted to come and make cider. This was clever as what he really wanted was some slave labour picking apples, no cider press in sight. We only found out when we got there.

As is fitting for Somerset tradition, we were pinching his neighbour's apples. Nick's approach was less stealthy than mine - he told his neighbour first.

Nick had a massive tarp we laid down on the floor under the tree, and we tried shaking the tree in various different ways.

The trick is to figure out a way to do it and not have apples raining down on you. I had a good go shaking it, but I was too weedy and got exhausted after about 20 seconds, so we soon fell into team roles. Rik would climb into the tree and shake it from there, Nick would take the ladder and jab the branches with it, and Pete would alternate from shaking branches and getting rained on, and trying to start collecting apples and...getting rained on.

I held bags open and other useful stuff...Rik started me on a training programme to get me habituated to spiders, working up the grades of hardcoreness. That was in fact the ammended programme, the first one being abandoned after I loudly and angrily explained that throwing spiders at me wasn't going to get me used to them any time soon.

The next bit was the longest most annoying bit. I thought we could just somehow pour the apples straight into bags, but there were as many leaves and twigs as apples, not to mention the spiders and million earwigs per tree. Rik really didn't like the earwigs. He spent as much time trying to kill them as bag apples. Bit like trying to exterminate midges from Scotland.

Apples bagged, it was off to the next tree, carefully selected by me. That was my other job - apple selecting. Like a professional wine taster, only without the horrible wine. Yuk yuk. I got to travel and taste things.

I'm gonna be honest - it was fun for the first...half and hour or so. Then it got a bit old. I wanted to climb trees and stuff like the others! Anytime anyone complained though, someone else would say 'Think of the cider!'

 

Pete and Rik playing 'Who Can Inflict The Most Pain with Apples'

After 3 hours though we ended it well - it's always fun getting a tractor out. We'd filled around 25 bags which I thought was pretty good going. Don't know how many litres of cider we'll get out of it. Blatently two or something insulting like that.

 Rik: 'Arrrgh I HATE earwigs!!!'

Soon we'll take the crop (I say 'we', if Nick doesn't take me I'll be pissed off...) to someone with an apple press, Nick's going to buy a barrel, and I'll finally see cider being made. Unfortunately I won't get to drink it, what with the whole shoving off to Australia thing. But it was nice to do something else genuinely Somersetty before we go.

Hay Bales

The neighbour supplying me with apples owns a little field next to the apples, which has been slowly but plentifully culturing a splendid crop of ragwort and docs. We don't like to see our neighbours succeeding in such a way so we got Bryan to bale it so we could burn it. That's called Saboutage.

Pete's task today was to stack the bales into a pile in the middle of the field ready for burning. He was computering so I appointed myself as project manager, my first task to pester him until he came with me to start the job.

We got up there and Pete had a GENIUS idea. Of making a HOUSE out of them. They were really heavy but after much coaching, here is our hay house.



The next task was, sadly, burning it. We were going to chuck diesel on it but we'd run out. Dad and I wondered if petrol would work. Dad thought I should check with Bryan but I rang him and there was no answer. I wondered if we should just go for it and hope. Then I remembered who to ring in any situation. Famie.

Famie told me in her calm way that whatever we did, not to use petrol, cos it vapourises and you could explode yourself in a cloud of fuel. This was today's useful lesson, unusually for me, not learnt the hard way. Tell all your friends. Ok fine so you all knew. Hush.

So I went and got more diesel and Dad chucked it on and I lit it. That is, after turning round to my parents and asking for reassurance that it wouldn't just blow up when I made a spark (I saw a film last night where that happened. It was a gas pipe the baddie had chopped, but it was still in my mind). They said they didn't know. But that they didn't think so. Not especially reassured, I still went for it.



It burned. We went home.

Pilfering

Since this is a blog about our trip to Australia, I thought I'd talk about APPLES.

I have just been on a secret mission to steal apples from Next Door.

This mission began when I was wandering about in the field and saw so many lovely juicy apples of all different types and I wanted them, because we've run out. I thought to myself that that was naughty but then I thought to be fair, the lady never eats them. Look at the poor branches weighed down. So I snuck round the side, avoiding barbed wire and staying alert to banging noises coming from her garden somewhere (I didn't see anything, don't worry). And when I left my coat pockets were so heavy, they pendulumed about and whacked my legs, but in the name of missioning I kept a nonchalant expression as I sauntered back.

Here be the booty!

The only camera in the house was my bro's M9...so er, yeah, borrowed it.

APPLE REVIEWS:

The back right couple brought tears to my eyes. They look so sweet and juicy, I took a huge bite, and, well, they're juicy, but that's definitely as far as it goes. Thing is they're quite addictive, so looks like I'm going to cry my way through both of them. Hoohoo. Much blinking.

The small ones at the front: Sweeter, but after the tastebud assault of the stonking apples, tastes a bit boring. I need a palate cleanser. Cornflakes!

Post-cornflake tasting: Mm quite nice actually. But the texture is less dense than the stonking ones. Not sure I'd risk getting shouted at for going back for more.

Trio in between stonking and smalls: OOO YUMMO, as Sid the Sloth would say. Ooo. Win.

Ones still in a bunch with leaves on: Weird, it tastes like things that are supposed to taste like apples. A strange sensation, eating apple-flavoured apples.

Huge ones to the far left: argghhh more tear-inducing fruit!

So the clear winners are the sort of middle sized ones in between all the other ones. Next mission is to take one of their kind to identify more to steal.

This is the great thing about blogging isn't it? I can waffle on about whatever boring thing I like, imagining that it's interesting to someone else who isn't here eating these apples. No wonder everyone finds it so addictive. Well, this one was done on the pretense that I surely need to give it a test run, you know, make sure I know it works, so that I can use the next...5 weeks to iron out all those technical problems I might have...