A surprising Appley Afternoon

This poster says it all, really. In a rather surprising (for us) excursion this afternoon, we participated in the Apple Day at the Wolvercote Community Orchard, a place of which we had no knowledge, just about opposite the Trout Inn, of which we have considerable knowledge!

The orchard is full of trees, many of rare varieties, laden with apples at this propitious time of year. Here a young visitor has picked some fine specimens and is off to get them weighed.

There was some very interesting apple tasting going on, and some of the varieties were unusual and delicious. The idea was to discover varieties that one found especially tasty, and then find a tree of the right variety in the orchard, pick some apples off the tree, and purchase them at ridiculously low prices. How much better than the supermarket offerings!

There was fun and games going on, with competitions and a band. For example, there was wet and messy apple bobbing.. Here is another young competitor at her timed trial.

Another amusing entertainment was the "longest peel" competition. Some of the winning peelings were indeed pretty long. This is the way the judging was done with a tape measure.

At the end of the afternoon, the visitors were led away, Pied Piper style, by the band filing out.


Mrs Scharwenka and I even won a prize in the raffle, which a kind lady has just delivered "by hand" (really "by car"). The prize is some very classy hand-crafted Italian notepaper.