The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

Louth is a lovely place. Little shops, winding streets, and comfortable benches everywhere offering a brief sit down and space for a gobfull of pork pie. My parents have lived here since time immemorial (1974) and I did too when I was a youngster who still had hopes and dreams. Now they’ve all gone, it seems appropriate that I’m back. There are definitely worse places to spend a Saturday afternoon. Trust me, I’ve done the research.

The field itself is about a mile and a half away from the bus station so that’s not a bad walk. I decide to go via my dad’s heavily extended bungalow just in case there’s the vaguest chance of a lift.

Sadly, my dad is out. In fact, a couple of text messages later, I learn that he’s at the field already which is good news because it means I can find him there and discuss where to site the orchard but bad news because it means I have to walk. Fortunately for all concerned (principally, me), my dad’s wife Barb comes back to pick me up in the Hilux.

Once at the field, me and the old boy have a constitutional around the acreage. I know it’s just a field but wandering around it with my very own dad brings a grin to my face. The Sun is shining (admittedly it’s doing it behind some clouds so we can’t see it, but it’s shining nonetheless) and the grass is green. Even the bridge we built together a couple of years ago is still standing firm and true in the spring weather. We built it so the cows don’t have to get their feet wet crossing the stream. I kid you not.

Anyway, we have a brief shufty at the majestic Ticklepenny Lock (opinion is divided as to whether it should be Ticklepenny’s Lock but I’m going with the shorter version to save time) and then wander back along the canal path. When I originally decided to move back to Lincolnshire I had a vague notion of living in a narrowboat on the canal here. One look at the diminutive, non-navigable waterway sent me searching for bricks and mortar on the mean streets of Lincoln instead.

On the way back to the field’s official tea brewing area, we spot a likely location for the orchard. It’s grassy and it already has a tree in it so they can obviously survive there. It’s sheltered from the road by a substantial hedge and bordered on two sides by the emergent River Lud. Perfect or, in Lincolnshire parlance, I suppose it’ll do. There’s a photo up top. Sadly, it’s not on the official Louth Tourist Bus Route yet but give it time.

The day’s business concluded, we retired to a local hostelry for a pint of their finest. On previous occasions, this boozer has been lit solely by gas and stocked with Fulstow beers. It’s not like that today, but the beer was decent and the atmosphere cracking. Gazing at the flickering firelight, I asked my dad if he knew how to plant apple trees. He had no idea. It was starting to concern me.

These days though, I’m nothing if not a lardily proactive researcher so, once the bus dumped me back in Lincoln, I started looking into it with all the vigour and enthusiasm I could muster.

The New Book of Apples starts encouragingly. “Apples are the easiest of the tree fruits to grow,” it blares, “the most tolerant, the least demanding and the most rewarding of all for the amateur gardener.” Bingo, I’m in. Least demanding is one of the best things you can hear at the start of any venture or relationship. However, after making these bold claims, it proceeds to talk about sprouts and tree forms and cordon arches and pergolas. Maybe, I pondered, the New Book of Apples has a very different view of what constitutes “easy” than I do, a hopeless know-nothing who has never managed to keep a cactus alive for more than five minutes.

“You can keep your academic tomes,” I declared loudly to my disinterested feline housemate. “I’m off where all proper academics go, YouTube.”

Once I’d weeded out the videos that implied a need for some level of expertise, I found one that said basically I just needed to cut off a three foot long branch and stick it in a plant pot for eight weeks. Then, check for progress and if it looks good, bang it in the ground and wait.

Sadly, it turns out that much like me as a desperately lonely teenager, apples are unable to self pollinate no matter how hard they try. I was going to need more than one tree if I wanted sweet, sweet apples to eventually emerge. Worryingly, I hadn’t even found one tree yet, let alone two. More encouragingly, successful apple relationships depend only on proximity and blind chance rather than the things that blighted my romantic endeavours; appearance and personality.

Anyway, my teenage frustrations are not the subject matter of this blog. Time is running short. I need to pick my targets and get some branches planted. My garden is south facing which apparently is ideal and my ongoing lack of friends means there’s no risk of visitors inadvertently knocking them over. I’m back in the game.