The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

I’m getting slacker by the day with regards to this blog so I’ve changed tack slightly. I’ll produce a monthly journal style post and then occasional special reports when something exciting happens. Don’t expect a lot of them. If this tips you over the edge towards unsubscribing, I commend your wisdom and thank you for your attention thus far. With that said, on with the action.

The buses in July welcome more passengers than normal: tourists heading to the seaside wonder of Mablethorpe for the most part. They normally have to change in Louth and I occasionally feel inspired to convince them to stay but they never do. The buses on the way back home are always deserted which makes me think they must have found what they were looking for in the flickering neon delights of Mabo, or perhaps won so many 2p coins on the slot machines that they’ve decided to settle down there and become an arcade baron.

Bus traffic seems to be picking up as we emerge from the long nightmare of Covid and the consequent lockdown. I’m not sure that our community has recovered entirely but it might have; I can barely remember last week let alone how many people were on the bus from Lincoln to Louth two years ago. Most people are still wearing masks although some have started to let them slip south of their nostrils. I’ve yet to see any proper mask rage; no-one on a bus in the countryside seems to have enough energy for a proper fight. I saw an elderly couple in loud shirts get on once without the mandated face coverings but the only person who even started to object was a young mum who was probably justifiably concerned about her pram-bound offspring.

One of the fellas explained that his husband had anxiety issues and just getting on the bus in public was a big deal for him. She backed down. No further stress. It’s difficult to tell from the top half of someone’s face but she seemed to be smiling. Maybe it was wish fulfilment on my part. Young ‘uns get so much bad press these days that I latch on with inappropriate gusto to sightings that restore my faith in the youth of today.

After a temporary diversion along the A157 for a few weeks, the bus is now back on the scenic route via South Willingham, my favourite aristocratic enclave. Its houses all have names rather than numbers: Carpenter’s Cottage, Cobbler’s Cottage, as if to suggest that their owners are grafters made good. I have my doubts. I wonder whether alliteration is mandatory. I’ve still not seen a Tinker’s Townhouse or a Sailor’s Semi but there’s always hope.

I still don’t really know why the bus comes here. You can tell they don’t expect anyone to get on because the decorative bus stop is down a sort of sideroad, away from the bus route and round a corner so that even if you knew the bus was coming and signalled, you’d need to take a walk back to the road first or it would just sail on past. I’m not complaining: I wish we took more diversions. I’ve always fancied a bus ride through Benniworth. I think someone from school who hated me used to live there but I might be wrong. It was a long time ago.

We both know that this blog is primarily concerned with bus trips, but I suppose I ought to at least pretend it’s about my orchard. Over the course of the month, five of my trees have made a proper effort at producing fruit. They are Dr Clifford (cooker), Lord Burghley (eater), Peasgood Nonsuch (dual purpose), Broadholme Beauty (cooker) and Holland Pippin (dual). According to my guidebooks, Dr Clifford should be ready for picking at the end of August and can be used pretty much straight away. There won’t be enough fruit to do much this year, but I might get a few cakes out of it or maybe a couple of pints of apple juice. No worries, it’s still early doors. Hopefully, yield should improve year on year and soon I’ll be able to distribute some local heritage free of charge to passers-by while they let their dogs rampage around the field.

Much of the day-to-day tree husbandry has fallen to Barb, to take place during her occasional teabreaks from picking up horse poo. She has maintained her own plan of the orchard and even added some decorative flowers in a wheelbarrow. To settle any potential disagreements about the layout, I dug up my original envelope-based list of which tree is planted where. We compared lists and it turns out that they’re both the same. I still don’t like her newfangled edition though: lists should be scribbled on scraps of paper not neatly drawn out and almost to scale. Everyone knows that.

All of the trees have grown well with the exception of one of my two Ingall’s Reds. The central one is still a pitiable 4 foot, dwarfed by its neighbours, even the ones that are a year younger. A decision needs to be made. Do I give him another year in case he catches up or uproot him now and plant something else in his place? I might be able to relocate him somewhere less prestigious if I’m lucky. If he were sat on the edge of the orchard, there would be no issue but at the moment his central location makes it look like I’ve planted a circle of trees. I’ll probably let him lie. Every tree is sacred.

In previous years, the field beyond the boundaries of orchard and paddock has played host to a small herd of cows. They’d turn up in early Spring and mooch around chewing the grass for about ten months. The farmer paid grazing fees and also looked after the hawthorn hedges protecting two sides of the field from the road. It always seemed win-win. The money was sneaked into a bank account as insurance against future emergencies by my dad, an arrangement that wisely prevented the shareholders frittering the moolah away on toy soldiers and oily meat wrapped in pita bread.

This year the cows are not there, and the bad news is that they might not be coming back. Bovine TB has prompted the authorities to divide the county into sections and livestock can only cross the new boundaries contingent on expensive veterinary monitoring. It means that the farmer has instead pastured his herd somewhere near Legbourne. Six months in and it has become apparent how vital the cows were. Without their munching tendencies, the grass was waist high and starting to look a little unsightly.

Fortunately, Farmer John has not deserted us entirely. This month he returned with an agricultural mowing device attached to the back of a tractor and proceeded to cut all eight or so acres of field. The hay was baled and taken back to his cows, so he’s got something out of the deal as well. We’ve now got a field that looks more managed and is certainly more welcoming to ramblers.

I wish I’d been there to watch the mowing operation. There’s something about a vintage Massey Ferguson trundling through countryside that sets my heart a flutter. Although that could just be my blood pressure.

With the grass cut, the outline of an old pond has been revealed in detail. We’ve been vaguely planning to do something for a couple of years, but this might have prompted some action at last. The plan is to sink a shaft and check out the water level prior to potentially redigging it next year and seeing how many species of dragonfly we can get in by the summer of ‘23. Possibly. I’m hazy on details. My strengths lie in dreaming about the end results and not worrying too much about the intervening logistics.

It’s been a balmy month in all, not much going on in the orchard beyond the continued growth of some fruit, but all part of the summer calendar. Join me next time at the end of August, by which time Ticklepenny Orchard’s first yield may well have gone down my neck.