The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

Just a shortish update this week (no cheering at the back) because I’ve been busy at work and haven’t had any time to go off gallivanting around the countryside. If I had a moped or enough energy to go more than half a mile on a pushbike, there’d probably be more action, but such is life. Having said that, to be honest I’ve spent most of the week basking in the warm celebrity glow of expanding my reader base to three people. This must be what J.K. Rowling feels like every morning.

I’ve got another confession to make. Not only is this post criminally short but most of it is about death. That should get rid of the hangers on. Next week, it’ll just be you and me, mum. Like the good old days.

Anyroad, two weeks have passed since I basically stole a branch from (hopefully) William Ingall’s Grimoldby Greengage tree. For reasons I can’t quite make out, rather than relying on sunshine and the great outdoors I’ve kept the branch in my derelict shed under cover of damp and darkness. Nevertheless, it’s had plenty of attention. I’ve been stroking its leaves, watering its ground and whispering sweet nothings into the plant pot like a slum dwelling Prince Charles. Despite my best efforts, it has selfishly decided to die.

At one point, I started to wonder whether the problem was me spending too much time with it. It wouldn’t be the first time a previously close confidante has suggested I develop a wider circle of friends. In case the branch was as picky as people seem to be, I watered it tenderly on Wednesday morning and then left it in peace for a couple of days.

The period of separation is a tactic that has rejuvenated no end of human friendships for me (absence makes the heart grow fonder and, critically, the memory grow weaker) but, sadly, it turns out to be less effective with plant life. On a bright Saturday morning, I nervously approached the shed but was greeted only by the sight of sagging leaves and the smell of cat wee.

Just in case my senses had been dimmed by the genuinely overpowering stench of urine, I reached out to the branch. I had read somewhere on the internet that if there was resistance when you pulled at a cutting, it was a sign that it was starting to root. I pulled with a gentleness that belied my sweaty fat lad physique, hoping for the faintest hint of rooty resistance.

Nope. No such luck. It slid out of the mud like it had never wanted to be there anyway and was leaping into my hand in case I might be able to reattach it to its parent.

Beyond any reasonable doubt, this branch is dead. Its wood is grey. Its leaves are greyer. I wanted to bring life but instead, much like Robert Oppenheimer before me (albeit on a slightly less grand scale) I am become death, the destroyer of tree branches.

On this occasion, however, hope turns out to be not entirely lost.

On the afternoon of my recent 50^th birthday, as youth and hope left me behind like Frodo Baggins setting sail for the Grey Havens, a good friend of mine gave me an actual factual bonafide apple tree. She’ll be over the moon at appearing in the blog, much like Boyzone are when they are reminded of that appearance on the Late Late Show or Prince Harry is when you mention that Nazi uniform he once thought looked funny, but that’s her fault. She could easily have given up on this friendship when she realised the implications. It’s not like I tried to hide them.

The tree is neither rare nor even strictly Linkisheer, but it is most definitely an apple tree and it is equally definitely alive. Better still, it appears to be over the worst of the complicated growing shenanigans. It’s in a pot in my garden. It has leaves and it has branches. It even has a professional looking stick that it can rest on when it gets knackered. I think I love it.

I’ll give it a few months and then plant it in the orchard proper. We’re on our way, chaps, we’re on our way.