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 Continue reading

As a youngster, I used to take great delight in making life hard for my teachers. That was what kids did back then, even ones as painfully nerdy as me. When I eventually became a man, a couple of months before my recent fiftieth birthday, I honestly intended to turn my back on such jiggery Continue reading

There have been two big developments concerning the nascent Ticklepenny Lock Orchard this week. The first involves trees, business cards and Jane Austen. The second involves cooking apples and the Common Market. Both are equally thrilling and more than worthy of a poorly written entry in the blog. On Wednesday evening, I took the HS4 Continue reading

  Writing my last post reminded me of the sense of derring do and adventure I felt sneaking through the orchard at the end of my friend’s garden. Suddenly, instead of a cellulitic librarian wheezing his way over a garden fence, I was the Dread Pirate Roberts off on some piratical escapade to champion the Continue reading

There’s nothing worse than children starving. Except children singing. That’s much worse. Way back in the year 1827, Goodman Thomas Stevenage found himself stuck with several famished children (I imagine) on his hands and could think of only one way to stop them wailing. Food. Specifically, because Thomas was a man of remarkably good taste, Continue reading

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 Continue reading

When last we met, I was tentatively cycling through Grimoldby looking for a tree of interest that was allegedly hidden nearby. It was a promising lead, backed up by research into William Ingall, orchardman of these parts, and local historical maps found in murky corners of the internet (old-maps.co.uk). As surely as night follows day Continue reading

In what must surely be a breach of corporate social responsibility, Google have started publicising this nonsense on their search engine. All in all, that’s had mixed results. Bad for the poor innocents who have been tricked into reading it, but good for me in that it’s resulted in some more than welcome pointers about Continue reading

In January 1567, Louth’s very own James “Smythey” Smyth handed to his offspring land comprising the manors of Hakthorpe, Lesthorpe, Elkington, North Elkington and South Elkington. As well as 30 messuages (apparently a type of dwelling house) and 20 cottages the land included 20 orchards. Twenty whole orchards divvied out by one toff from Louth in Continue reading

After all this time, no-one would blame you for scepticism but, I promise you, I had plans for today. It was going to be either a day in Stamford at the Community Orchard site or, in the most dire of circumstances, a bus trip to Isaac Newton’s gaff near Grantham to see his apple tree, Continue reading