The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

This has been a big week for my blog. An extensive advertising/begging campaign on social media has resulted in me building a small community of follower (my sister) and a group of friends who felt obligated to click on the link and who are now justifiably concerned about my mental health. I’m taking my new found fame (with my sister) seriously and will henceforth be putting even more effort into this poorly written nonsense. You have both my thanks and my sympathy that you haven’t got anything better to do with your time.

In other news, I’ve been peering wistfully at a copy of the National Apple Register of the United Kingdom by Muriel Smith for the last couple of weeks but have been put off by the £150 plus postage and packing price tag. I found a couple of reference copies in Cincinnati (probably a bit too expensive to visit) and London (definitely too expensive to visit) but just as I thought all hope was lost, I discovered a facsimile reprint on Abebooks for the much more doable price of forty squid. I thought about it for approximately no seconds before handing over the cash (electronically). All I need to do now is be in when the courier sneaks down the passage and knocks deliberately silently on my front door. The latest update on the delivery company’s website says “we’ve got it” which is either tracking information or a ransom note. I’m not sure which.

Spurred on by my find and with time on my hands between the other pointless things I spend my spare hours on, I actually visited a genuine, no nonsense orchard. Not a massive, commercial Pink Lady effort, but a small, beautiful volunteer one.

Cross O’Cliff orchard is one of the few remaining in Lincoln and has been around for about 150 years. A renovation project was started in 1995 and the official council website boasts that “ten years on a lot has been achieved.” Now I’m no mathematical whizzkid, but what that statement tells me is that there’s been no council attention since 2005. Fortunately, a quick peek and you can tell the volunteers are still there though and that’s what matters.

To get to it, you need to walk up Cross O’Cliff Hill past the Priory Academy and keep your eyes peeled for a hidden entrance and a sign on the right. Look across the road and you’ll see the yawning expanse of the South Common, all hilly dog-capering grassland and picnic blanket Cathedral gazing. What you’re after though is on the other side of the road; a wooden kissing gate held closed by a plastic coke bottle full of water. On the other side of the gate there’s a path sloping gently down through some bushes. I took a picture. Sloping paths disappearing into the distance get me every time. I think it’s the promise of adventure.

Once you’re down the path and into the orchard proper, there’s a concentrated treasure trove of trees both ancient and modern, decoratively festooned with ornate white blossoms and occasional small black plastic bags laced with discarded dog poo. I know which I prefer. Soon I imagine the blossoms will go and you’ll get actual fruit instead. That’s probably a more difficult choice.

The bases of the fruit trees are housed in protective wire mesh jackets and have labels proclaiming their origin and what month they produce fruit. They aren’t all apples. There are some pears and even a gage, and a non-fruity tree with branches that form a sort of sitting hand area. I’ll post a picture.

None of the apple trees were on my list, which isn’t surprising really. These apples are all very much “found” and being lovingly tended by medal-deserving locals. What I did learn, though, was that the creative act of new apple production is called raising. There you go, I’m on my way to becoming an expert. I’m not promising it’ll be a short journey.

I wandered round the small orchard for about half an hour, grinning like a loon and feeling the pressures of life evaporating (it might have been sweat). The website says there’s a Peasgood’s Nonesuch here somewhere but I couldn’t find it. I did find a pear from 1860 Massachusetts though and I also got to hang around in the peace and quiet with the sun beating down on my worryingly exposed scalp. It was genuinely wonderful and I’m not the sort of person normally given to enjoying things. It confirmed something for me. This is what I want. No material success or peer approval for me. No thanks. I’ll have the solitude, the trees and the company of disinterested, but nevertheless tuneful, birds.

No competition.

Next week, maybe, just maybe, a trip to the raising place of the William Ingall. I’ve been promising it for weeks. One day it will happen. In the meantime, if you fancy a trip to the Cross O’Cliff orchard, I can heartily recommend it.