The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

Strictly speaking this blog post doesn’t contain any actual perfidy but it’s a cracking word that I’ve not had the opportunity to use in real life so there you go. Rest assured there’s enough trespass to make up for it.

Consumed by the righteousness of my cause, this week I vaulted onboard another Stagecoach into the Lincolnshire countryside, and headed off towards a hitherto unseen but allegedly abandoned orchard. For reasons that will become clear, I’m not going to reveal its location. Suffice to say the lengthy bus route took us through all kinds of villages and fields and went past a pub sign that read, and I quote, “Open all day, every day. Closed Mondays.” It’s probably a genius piece of marketing. It certainly made me want one of their Sunday Roasts and a pint of Batemans.

Eventually I arrived at my destination and wandered around the village green a bit in concentric circles trying to get my bearings. I made a few false starts but eventually managed to find an overgrown path and sign reading, “Private property, no admittance.” Bingo.

I think I paused for almost a second before I walked straight past it. There was a glimmer of conscience there but my lust for knowledge had consumed all. I had crossed the rubicon without really knowing what one was or whether there would be an obvious way back.

I spent the next 45 minutes or so taking photographs of baby apples that, if I’m being honest, all looked fairly similar. I wrote notes on my Samsung and imagined clever words I could use to describe the trees around me. I even saw a flower in the distance that had been obscured by a collection of weeds but was still bright enough to stand out and I took photos of that, thinking it would lend this post a more romantic air.

By the time I had finished, I had logged 9 apple trees, 5 pear trees and a plum. Each and every one of them was laden with fruit and even though none of it was yet ready for eating I was buzzing with excitement at the thought of pillaging these branches for samples to take to Gunby Hall in October.

My work done, I took a last deep breath of the rarefied air, glanced at the swarms of insects and headed back to the bus stop.

And that’s where it all went wrong. Sort of. I’ll let you be the ultimate judge of that.

“Hello,” boomed a cheery voice. “Are you alright?”

Neighbours. Concerned citizen types looking over their garden fence directly at me in the middle of my lawbreaking.

I stammered a response about just taking photos of some trees. I even promised I wasn’t stealing anything, just in case they thought a bearded and camo-clad stranger wandering through their private property might be up to no good.

They asked me in and offered me a cup of coffee. I half considered making a break for it but thought that might confirm their suspicions.  No more running, I decided (not that there had been any up to this point). It was time to face the consequences. My time was up, my number called.

I walked round to the side door looking as repentant as I could manage and started to open my rucksack to show them I had nothing but a trashy swords and sorcery novel I was saving for the bus ride home. No stolen apples, no pilfered branches for grafting.

Once inside the house, they turned out to be chatty and altogether amiable, but deep down I still thought it was a ruse to delay my escape while the local constabulary arrived from the next village.

Nope. It turns out first impressions were correct. They were completely lovely. Obviously, they wanted to know what I was doing. They were looking after the keys to the land on behalf of the real owners who had been called away to look after elderly family members.

Hot coffee in hand, I explained that I had moved to Lincoln for vaguely similar reasons but had unfortunately been left with a lot of free time since my Grandma passed away. I had chosen to fill that time looking for heritage apples and had been advised that this particular orchard was sort of abandoned.

I apologised. A lot. I’m good at it.

The key holding couple laughed and assured me that they didn’t have a problem with my scumbaggery. Maybe I could even take samples to the apple day in case there were any obscure varieties there, although they were fairly confident the trees were just generic breeds. I have no idea. People keep thinking I know what I’m doing but I genuinely can’t tell one apple from another.

Anyway, I drank coffee, discussed apples, Lego and archaeology and promised not to publicise the location of the trees. I didn’t bother to explain that this blog couldn’t publicise the location of anything even if it wanted to.

Once I’d finished my free hot drink, I left for the bus home and considered my options. My conclusion is that this orchard will go, at least on my part, unmentioned and unravaged. And I think I’m happy about that. Not everything should be discovered. What I’ve realised is that trees don’t produce their fruit just for humans. Even if there aren’t any naked apes mooching around, trees just go on producing fruit and dumping it on the ground for insects and fungus and the like. The wretched and the unseen feast on the bounty we don’t even know about. Nature is a beautiful thing and I’m pleased she gets to do wonderful stuff we will never see. Everyone deserves secrets.

Also, I nearly wet myself when I got found out. I can’t cope with the guilt.