The Hidden Orchard and Other Rooms

I really should have posted this a few weeks ago because the apple blossom has fallen from the trees and, if successfully pollinated, the fruit should be starting to form.

We have an orchard of sorts closer to the house but it has been neglected. It contains one ancient cooking apple tree and two crabs. There used to be damsons but they are broken down now. Recent plantings of fruit trees have not been successful. A greengage and pear never took off. The Katy apple tree that Les planted is doing OK and the currants and gooseberries are reasonable if we can get to them before the blackbirds. For the past few years Bert has been planting other trees in there including a tiny apple that Mammy grew from a pip. Who knows how that will turn out.

A few years ago we applied for and received a number of native Irish apple trees from Trees on the Land which were not planted in the orchard. They are in an out of the way spot and I'd forgotten all about them. Then, a few weeks ago Bert said that I really ought to go see the apple blossom before it dropped.

What apple blossom?

He reminded me where it was so I grabbed a camera and went out to see.

I've heard that professional gardeners advise making 'rooms' in a garden so that all is not visible at once. It's a good idea. But I'm not sure that they mean that the rooms are hidden by overgrown raspberry canes, great clumps of nettles or fallen laburnums. That's what here is like. Our outside is packed wih rooms. For instance, if you want to see our climbing hydrangea you need to go round the back of the long shed where it grows profusely with a clump of yellow welsh poppies at its feet. Bert put it there because it prefers a north facing aspect. He wasn't bothered that it faces a big dungheap.

We seem to have forgotten the 'room' hidden under the sweeping branches of the big beech trees. This was a den created by Martha and friends.

Why we can't have nice things

Five years later

Enraged

I've been trying to make a post about why I lost my temper with a visitor to our home when he expressed unasked for views supporting the Orangeman in the White House. This, despite knowing that my political alignment leans strongly to the left. But what really pissed me off was when he asserted that RFK Jr was the best person to have charge of the health department. His reasoning? Because Kennedy is an old man, yet he has a six-pack and this must mean he 'looks after himself' therefore best man for the job in hand.

How does one argue with that? I didn't even try. It was too stupid.

Instead, I said something like this,

Have you any idea what if feels like for me to sit in my own home and listen to you and people like you spouting your stupid shit? Do you know that I so often wish that I could just say, there's the fucking door, why don't you just fuck off!

Then I stormed out, to sit it out until he had the decency to leave.

Which he did, almost immediately.

I heard Bert in the kitchen, putting the kettle on. He looked quite unperturbed.

I said,

Has he gone?

Yes. He said to me, tell Nelly I'm sorry I offended her.

And what did you say?

I said, you didn't offend her. You enraged her.

Is it any wonder I don't have much to say about politics in this blog. I'm just not cut out for it.

I thought of finding a picture of that oul fella with the six-pack to illustrate this post but any I saw were too horrid. Instead, a picture of Cleo running through a wood with a stick in her mouth. Her ears don't normally look like that. Nice capture.