The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

I’m a late convert to Race Across the World, the BBC show in which contestants attempt to make their way to distant parts of the globe without using air travel. I’ve watched the first series and the most recent one and I’ve enjoyed both, even though I’ll admit that I got impatient in the final episode and clicked forward to see who had won. I’m not sure how I feel about the confected tension at the end of each episode when in reality the teams are all hours or even days apart but the overall narrative of old friends rekindling the fires of their youth or estranged families rediscovering each other is heartwarming even for an old cynic like me.

I’ve no idea what happens in series two to five, but both the ones I’ve seen have involved time spent in Almaty, Kazakhstan, a city famously associated with the origins of the orchard apple. I knew about its history but I never considered that the city might be accessible until watching the show. If pairs of travellers can get there with only the backing of a major media conglomerate, I must be able to do it on my own with no idea what I’m doing. Also, and I can’t stress the importance of this fact, I can just fly there and back because I’m not trying to be entertaining. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll have already realised that.

I did what I usually do when I come up with a harebrained scheme late at night which is to moot the idea in a sort of half-hearted “obviously I’ll never do this but” kind of way whilst eating breakfast with my dad. Bewilderingly, the old boy seemed to think it would be a good idea for his oldest son to head off into the great wide open so I ordered a Lonely Planet Guide to Central Asia, signed up for a crash course in Russian and started mithering the Kazakh Embassy for travel information.

My preliminary investigations have revealed that not only does Almaty actually mean Apple City, but also that they have an apple festival on the third weekend of September each year. I’d seen the streets lined with ornamental apples on the telly but an actual weekend celebration of appleness was taking this trip to the next level. Flights are cheaper than you might think, hotels are some random amount of money that might represent good value or might be daylight robbery, I can’t really tell, and UK visitors don’t need visas. It’s all coming together. Kazakhstan, get ready for a lardy blogger heading your way soon (ish).

Meanwhile, back at Ticklepenny Orchard, I’ve been cracking on with all kinds of nonsense. A couple of years ago I bought a set of professional looking tree labels but I’ve never quite got round to putting them up. I never quite get round to doing a lot of things, to be fair. Anyway, the time has come to attach them to stakes and hammer them into the ground. It’s the only way that scrumpers will be able to tell what they’re pinching.

I manage to talk my occasional collaborator, Stephen Caractacus Potts (genuinely his real name) into coming along for the ride as insurance against my complete lack of practical skills. We start knelt down beside senior tree Dr Clifford with a stake and a hammer. The stake is a bit rotten but it’s all I’ve got and we manage to get it mostly stable and upright without splitting the wood too badly. I don’t think we hit any tree roots as we hammer but who knows for sure what’s going on underground? I grab a screw from a jamjar of randoms and set to. It proves to be more difficult than I imagine. When the screw is about an inch in, and I’ve started sweating so much the screwdriver is slipping in my hand, Stephen helpfully points out that it’s much longer than it needs to be. Seconds later I have my own revelation, which is that it would be a lot easier to screw the labels onto stakes before those stakes have been hammered into the ground. Oh well, no use crying over burned bridges, or whatever the phrase is.

Exercise and me have never been close friends but even so I’m a bit embarrassed about how knackered I am by the time the screw is mostly in. I lurch to my feet, almost throwing myself into a clump of nettles, and have a good look. It looks well but there’s no way I’m going to be able to manage another dozen without a minor cardiac event. I try to hide my relief when Stephen offers to do the next one, Ellison’s Orange. He says he’s keen to achieve something before wandering off for his lunch but really I think he just wants to avoid having to give me the kiss of life. Before he starts he gives me an impromptu lesson in different types of screwdriver. The screws I’m using, he blathers, are pozidrivs and not, as I thought, Phillips, differentiated by some tiny grooves that are invisible to the human eye. I thought there were only two types of screw, flat head and Phillips but it turns out I am wrong. He wonders aloud why I chose a Phillips screwdriver and a posidriv screw. I wonder aloud why he didn’t tell me that at the time.

I can’t remember what he said next. I think I was too livid to pay attention. I was also beginning to think that it would be a lot easier to mow the grass before I add more obstacles but I let him crack on with label two before I mention it. Armed with the correct screwdriver, his label is attached in about a quarter of the time it took me. Bloody show off.

With his contribution concluded, Stephen bids me farewell and wanders off home to work on his flying car or whatever bonkers invention he’s currently adding to his house. He doesn’t bother to hide what looks to me like a smirk. These things don’t get forgotten. Not by me anyway.

I have a rest and consider the grass and weeds that are despoiling my beautiful orchard. Barb has mowed a path from the stable to the river but that only makes the areas I’m supposed to be caring for look worse. Cutting the grass will only get harder the longer I leave it and the more labels I have to mow around so I down tools and scrounge the use of the local strimmer. It all looks a lot nicer once I’m done. I feel a bit bad about consuming over a full tank of petrol but at least it’s fairly cheap these days. Ahem.

In an unprecedented run of good decisions, I’m also right about attaching the remaining labels before hammering in the stakes. It’s a lot easier sitting down than it is bending over at weird angles, using one hand to hold the stake, one to turn the screwdriver and an imaginary third one to hold the screw in place. Some of the wood is in a bit of a state but needs must. I can replace them at a later date now I’ve got the technique down pat. Once they are all securely attached, I bang them into the ground following the tree plan I drew when everything was first planted. I decide to orient them towards visitors coming from the road entrance which means that the first two we did need moving. I get done by about two in the afternoon, only minutes too late for a chippy lunch. No stress. I’ve got plenty of baked beans I can have cold in a sandwich back home. Food of the gods.

Even if I say so myself, I’m pretty pleased with the way things stand. The grass is short and almost nearly uniform and there are no patches of nettles waiting to harass passers-by. The labels look smart; I’m glad I spent a small fortune getting them from a Royally Appointed expert rather than making them myself from old plywood and felt tip pens.

All is good at Ticklepenny Orchard. Pozidriv shenanigans forgotten, my beardy face carries a smile a mile wide. Next week it will be time to untie my grafted apples so no doubt that will bring me back down to earth.

Until then, do svidaniya, comrades.