The time is nearly here when I pick my hundreds of apples from my three glorious apple trees…I’m always so thankful for my harvest… Picking each apple makes me feel honoured and humbled that such a lovely, delicious fruit has grown on my tree in my garden and I have hundreds!
I also have this nagging guilt when i pick, that some of them will goto waste… We certainly can’t eat them all…there are only so many pies, crumbles, juices, buns, jars of apple sauce and puddings one family can eat…
But they are so beautiful, each one precious and deserving of someone to love, enjoy and value it.
Over the years I’ve collected many customers for my free of charge apples. Mum, grandma, visiting friends, mr and mrs Donaldson over the road accept a couple of crumbles ( she struggles to bake these days) and I also deliver a sack to the church in time for their apple harvest festival,..but I’m still left with apples in abundance!! And I hate wasted food …..
So last year for the first time I unearthed my basket old picnic hamper, loaded it with yummy apples and a sign saying “help yourself…free apples) placing it at the end of the drive I felt pleased they would go to good homes and might just make someone’s day…. May even encourage everyone to bake ( I had a romantic idea that the smell of baked apple pies would waft around our gardens)
By day two not one had gone .. Cars had slowed down and dog walkers stopped to read… But not one apple was taken:-( ( except from a spotted hedgehog who enjoyed a fruit or two)
After much confused and giggly discussion we wondered if folks thought it was some kind of trick… Talking about the poisoned apple and the wicked step mother we hid our disappointment . We were aware that our lovely leafy estate wasn’t full of folk that Neighboured. We had tried a few times to drag them out of their lovely homes to become a thriving and inclusive community. First time we tried one christmas…we made christingles and clove studded oranges and took the kids and a couple of their friends carol singing. We practised at home and decided we were not going to ask for money and as a sign of goodwill and peace we would give out the oranges instead. A perfect christmas eve activity for the kids and lovely sentiment for the neighbours. After singing at over twenty doors, only had maybe three opened them, we were disheartened. But we carried on, believing we would be making someone smile behind each door, and that would be ok…singing our carols and leaving the oranges on doorsteps…we had a few more secretly open doors while we were at another houses, a couple of home owners running after us panicking. Thrusting their oranges back at us , they worried that we may have planted some kind of bomb in it or even that we might post through an invoice over the holidays for the said orange! The thought it was something for nothing terrifying them. We went the year after and more ( if only a few more) did open their door..albeit trying to give us money… Us refusing of course, much to their confusion.
Another time the kids and I sat down to devise a way to support earth hour… We typed out a short note inviting everyone on our street to turn out their lights for a hour at the guven time, put the given tea light into a jam jar in their window and take a walk around our block…we walked around posting the candle and note in every door excited to see if they would partake in this small but significant show of commitment and community. Out of the hundred or so homes… Only 4 took to the street and only two more lit their candle…. What a shame!?! But at least we tried… And some did respond… Better than none. ( however I did spend the whole walk countering ‘how hard can it be… Just turn your lights off for one hour…. Etc etc… Phfft’
So last year, we giggled as we put up a sign … Apples 10p each….by midday every apple had gone and although, thrilled, we felt a little sad that the only way our community would take something was to pay for it….
We will try again this weekend… Gather our fruit and put out front for free… Maybe they will trust us a little more this year and accept our gifts.
I however, will be thinking of how to bring the street together…maybe providing a lantern making workshop in time for earth hour this year.. Would anyone come? May be a carol service where everyone comes out and meets for christmas singing one evening? I’m gonna keep trying it’ll be worth it one day they will come out of their homes and be a community..
Happy apples everyone.. Anyone want any?
Peace
X
– drowned ‘witches’ hung criminals?
from their piece of earth…(yes i know all about GM foods, PESTICIDES, and forced cultivation and all that, I’m not denying the issue that it needs change… but pointing out.. that quite simply we have fertile growth in abundance) I celebrate and give thanks that even in the face of adversity we continue to struggle to work with this land (but in no way do we struggle like our brother and sisters in waterless, arid and growth less countries). I love and appreciate how we see an uprising and celebration of home-grown local produce..the praise and consumer desire for organic and British grown produce….a movement that is continuously adapting to keep our land alive.. and hey guess what I love celebrating the harvest festival!.
We are now all recycling( with the support of our councils/governments) building compost heaps, starting to embrace the technology of solar panels, wind turbines and even seeing how ‘growing our own’ is becoming the norm, quite fashionable even!?! when u look at the waiting lists for allotments and the schemes in place to support sustainable living through energy reform and awareness… I am proud in the distance we have travelled together.
as the women’s institutes, adult education ( much of which is funded) the governments, councils, arts council, sports councils, lottery funding and arts and business, in short they have put tens of thousands/millions into creating creativity, health and information… More than ever before! Particularly in inner cities and deprived housing with high percentages of crime and depression.
How about The ability to speak out ????( I’m doing it now on a blog, feeling pretty nervous ‘cos I’m not sure everyone will see my point.. but I’m not fearing for my life by writing it) with Facebook, text, phones, books, websites, forums and basic general speech in the street… freedom to talk and communicate is not to be bypassed when thinking about how lucky we are here in the UK! 
Who does that remind you of???? Let’s think… Folks who take everything for free, but don’t want to share it out between us all, take what they want, expect everyone to provide for u to keep for yourself…??? ( this isn’t actually my opinion but one of those that I have seen to complain about what we have, don’t have etc) Bankers, royalty, mps, lords… and I’ve noticed recently..Home owners, professionals such as doctors and lawyers, those who have saved and inherited and are not on the ‘bread line’ ( can u see where I might go here when thinking about university fees?)
Let’s work together and be grateful for what we have, does a mother in Africa blame her hospital that her child died from malaria? Or is she is grateful she was welcomed into a hospital at all? … grateful that someone could try to help..when so many of her sisters remain untreated and dying. Here we all have access to this care for free, enough in each town and city for every person to be treated! So why do we still think we are being badly treated, owed something more? We forget to celebrate what systems we have, what care we have ( even if it’s not perfect yet and is a work in progress… Don’t forget we are in a huge financial crisis right now and everything is suffering.. ALL THIS CARE COSTS BILLIONS ) 
educated children and also to care for them pastorally as a school community..I see the school involving parents, giving them a voice and an involvement in the education of their child….I see women and men choosing to educate their child at home, and the country supports it…. I see adults, who didn’t achieve getting chance to go back to school for free, to re-educate and move forward providing themselves with brighter futures if they choose that indeed that life would be brighter if they chose it to be. … I see those on benefits able to step into adult education that supports them prepare to find themselves back in the work place. I see students, young and old offered low-interest loans on hugely soft terms, to enable them to train for higher paid, specialist roles which pay more, provide services for their community and take responsibility for their own futures. ( again this is contentious…. But yes I think it’s right that the government doesn’t pay for every students’ degree… Tutors need wages, colleges and buildings need maintaining… I think at this level of personal development you should take personal responsibility for it financially… After all, no matter how you may argue, you are 90% more likely to work in a higher paid role with a degree .. Which in turn allows you to be able to afford to pay for the education you received to get you there in that very role..(don’t all the socialists believe that the rich shouldn’t get stuff for free!!! ok .. so if this is the case do we support the potentially rich get their for free? is it fair that those on low paid wages should pay ( via tax) for someone to become a doctor ( for example) and live on a hight paid scale than themselves?) also the amount of students ‘flunking’ out of their studies, since fees became chargeable , has dramatically dropped, saving the government millions, yes millions, of waisted cash….waisted wages from the lower paid hard-working tax payer!?…. All of a sudden going to university isn’t a paid opportunity to move out and have fun… It is now a serious career move and the (chosen) chance to invest in your own future… And with the government offering these supportive loans with supportive terms… I reckon we get a good deal! they are helping but not paying… )
So what else am I proud of?
and..I’m proud that my grandmother ( taught by her mother) taught my mother ….who taught me…. who now teaches my daughters…. to be thankful for our ‘haves’ not to be woeful for our ‘lacks’ and never guilty for the wrongdoings of others who came before us but to be thankful, proud and appreciate our accomplishments.
Round Peg festival Mama 
