Saturday, October 11, 2008

Season of mists...

...and there is lots of mellow fruitfulness in England this year, as the rain has conspired to make the apple crop simply extraordinary.

Today I picked the most important apples of all. Some years ago, at the shrine of Ladyewell at Fernyhalgh, we bought a tiny cutting of an apple-tree, less than a foot high. You know the legend of Fernyhalgh? Well, part of it involves a man looking for a place where grow "apples without any core..." We planted our sprig, and it grew and grew, and this year produced apples...high up, hard to reach, all in a tiny bunch...and today I scrambled up to reach them, via the fire-escape, and grabbed the branches.

Well, the apples do have cores. But we munched with great delight, and thought of Fernyhalgh and Catholic Lancashire and it is a golden Autumn day with slanting sunlight and all is good.

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