‘I’ll bring some apples’. 

‘I wouldn’t if I were you’ my mother in law said. ‘David always brings apples, because he has an orchard’. I’ve got an orchard too if you count my four trees, and I’ve got Russets! 

Eve, given a second chance couldn’t turn down a Russet.

The VOR successfully outbid herself at the Harvest Festival auction. I informed her that the bidder is meant to be trumped by another bidder, rather than themselves. Ignoring my advice she ploughed on in feverish pursuit of a giant onion, and drunk with power, blurted out random bids. I’ve got a fiver….. I’ve got ten pounds! not waiting for such obvious cues as Going Once… I wanted to intervene but was reluctant to undermine her new found confidence. Two pounds she exclaimed, obviously running out of cash, the giant onion becoming ever more elusive.

All in all it was a rather successful evening. The vicar mentioned farmers quite a lot, and I was familiar with at least one of the hymns, predictably We Plough the Fields and Scatter. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be much call for Cauliflowers’ Fluffy. There was wine and cheese afterward and the VOR turned out to be extremely popular for having thrown caution to the wind at the charity auction – especially as she had no idea what she had actually bought. When all was said and done we had acquired; three onions from a local supermarket in an unmarked paper bag, two baskets of apples – presumably to keep David happy – a couple of cabbages, some shop bought chutney, a bag of pears – although everyone agreed that it wasn’t a good year for them – a giant tomato and thankfully an enormous onion. Fortunately there wasn’t any livestock on offer. 

Hannah Twynnoy has had her headstone lovingly restored by a small group of well meaning locals in Malmesbury. Hannah had the dubious honour of being the first, and thankfully last, person to be killed by a tiger in Wiltshire in 1703. Animal husbandry doesn’t seem to have improved much over the past three hundred years, as Kimba the lion escaped from a circus last week and wandered the streets of Laddispoli in Italy for seven hours before capture.

Rony Vassallo, who is responsible for the animals at the Rony Roller Circus, said that while the thought of confronting a lion would make most people fearful, eight-year-old Kimba posed very little danger. ‘He met with people in an environment he wasn’t used to … and nothing happened. He said his fear had been ‘That someone could have harmed the animal, out of excess enthusiasm’. Which, I think, is where Hannah must have gone wrong. Imagine the damage Kimba could have done in the Cotswolds with that amount of spare time.

This Saturday morning there’s croissants and table tennis at the village hall. I’ve emailed asking for a start time but have received no reply. I guess that it’s difficult to type with a croissant in one hand and a ping pong bat in the other. 

The WI are putting on a talk about what it was like to be a servant girl in Tudor England. Tickets start at four pounds. I’m sure that if I tell the VOR, she could easily get them up to a fiver.

Painting: Apple Tree No 2 by km.lewis