The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

As planned, this week’s post is a follow up to the critically unacclaimed Cider Making for Amateurs. Except it isn’t, because my demi-johns haven’t been delivered yet despite the fact that they were allegedly posted weeks ago. I’ve never let a lack of content stop me before though so I’m writing anyway. Plough on, dear reader, for a true and accurate report of my recent hike with someone you’ve never heard of.

My friend Martin has spent the last sixty odd years living with his parents in the sprawling tenements of Lincoln but lost his mother before Christmas. His dad died a few years ago so he’s found himself alone and stuck in the house for lockdown. A few weeks ago, he threw himself out of bed and onto his sleeping dog so hard he punctured a lung and ended up in hospital for a couple of weeks (the dog’s fine). He’s mostly recovered now and has even bought a mattress that’s the same size as his bedframe, rendering future dog bothering bed accidents far less likely. Now he’s played the “simulate horrific injury to get some attention from medical staff” card, he’s left really scraping the bottom of the barrel; hanging out with me.

I am also lonely, but I’m much happier about that than Martin is. In fact, when people ask me if I’m lonely, my stock answer is that I’m not as lonely as I’d like to be. Ideally, I’d like to pack as much loneliness as possible into the remaining years before I die (alone). However, because I’m employed to pretend I care about other people, I suggested that we go for a walk one afternoon and stave off the black dog together.

I decided to take him round Cross O’Cliff orchard so I could have a look at it in the winter. Martin reckoned he remembered playing Cowboys and Indigenous Americans in the local area when he was a kid and promised that he had all kinds of humorous anecdotes. I began to sense a blogpost forming and took care to pack my notebook.

Martin turned up for our walk on a frosty Tuesday afternoon in those weird elasticated jogging pants that flare around the thighs but cling limpet-like to your calves and some new canvas trainers he’d bought from the local Asda. I was half tempted to call the whole thing off in the interests of safety but instead I just raised my eyebrows and asked if he was sure his shoes had enough grip for the muddy woodland.

He laughed. I laughed. We set off.  About four foot past the mildewed orchard gate, he slipped and fell on his arse, coating his MC Hammer sweatpants in claggy mud and leaving a bumcheek-sized smear in the earth. He reached out for me as he fell but I was too far ahead. Which was handy because if I’d been closer, I would’ve jumped out of the way and it would have reflected poorly on me. No point both of us being muddy.

He was unhurt but we agreed to take it steady for the rest of the mooch. Someone had helpfully laid tree branches on the rest of the path anyway so it was easier to stay upright, even in slip-on trainers. We sauntered off again. The orchard looked very different to the last time I was here. In January, it’s all ash grey trunks and bare branches, more abandoned wasteland than carefully cultivated fruit larder. Wild but still beautiful. Well, to me at least. Martin was trying to maintain the cheery atmos, but I could tell the sodden weight of his sweatpants was starting to get him down.

As we walked, he regaled me with unlikely tales of his younger days.

“All of this used to be a brickyard,” he alleged with a vague sweep of his arm.

Seconds later, apparently having forgotten the imaginary brickyard, he claimed it was a farm. I was struggling to see evidence for either one of them let alone both at the same time. As he chuntered away, I tried to draw his attention to the sign that said the orchard had been here since 1870. He was undeterred by my tedious obsession with reality and I didn’t have the heart to press the point. We’re all post-truth now. Besides, he spun a good yarn and interspersed it with the occasional poor quality joke. I’d pass them on but I think it’s better all round if I just let them die.

Most of the woods were bare but one valiant tree was still carrying a fair weight of crab apples. The ground nearby was a carpet of discarded fruit and I wondered whether I could turn them into jam or something. It seemed such a waste for nature to put so much effort into propagating the tree’s seed only for them to just rot into mulch. My mum had told me something about there being two types of crab apples distinguished by their shape. One was potential jam and the other was ornamental and quite inedible. Sadly, I’d not really been listening when she was gassing on about it and now my chickens had returned to roost. Knowing the difference exists but not which way it swings was very much like knowing you have to flee one type of bear attack and play dead for the other but being oblivious as to which is which. Only less horribly fatal.

Martin’s arthritis was beginning to play him up and the altitude wasn’t helping his solitary lung, so we left the apples behind and moved on. Brickyards and fake farm news long forgotten, he started cheerfully recounting the legend of a local witch he would regularly see when he was a youngster hereabouts. Apparently, the proof of her manifest witchery was wandering around on her own muttering a bit. No crooked nose, no broomstick, no black cat. I wondered silently to myself if he was perhaps getting witch mixed up with passer-by. Again though, he was having the time of his life yammering away so I let him crack on.

Just as my cynicism was about to reach its peak, we happened upon the remnants of her gingerbread house. Well, I say gingerbread. It was mostly brick but there were some creepy stuffed toys perched on the ruin that could well have been ensorcelled waifs and strays. You never know with these witch types. They get up to all kinds of nonsense. I told Martin he was lucky to have made it to adulthood given the obvious danger of his childhood playground. He laughed and then fell over again.

Now both legs of his tracky bottoms were weighed down with about a ton of sopping mud and I thought it best to beat a stumbling retreat. We would have fled, just for effect, but Martin had developed an entirely understandable need to cling to every available tree branch as he walked.

Despite our lack of haste, we made it to the exit without any further mishap. If the witch had turned up, we’d both have been in trouble. Neither of us would have needed fattening up before she banged us in the oven at Gas Mark Six.

Next week, if the Post Office gets its act in gear, cider making!