I always knew the Piccolo Book of Jokes and Riddles would come in handy one day and I can't believe I only got one chance to tell it when we went to Erddig Hall at the weekend for their 20th apple festival.
We are both sick of the supermarkets and their crappy apples from South Africa, Portugal and Holland so when we found out about this festival on a previous visit to the National Trust property near Wrexham we were determined to visit. We weren't the only ones either, as the place was full at 10.30 on a Saturday morning and we all had to wait until precisely 11.00 before they opened the doors.
Erddig Hall is a lovely property, with an interesting house as well as nice gardens. The apples were set up in a tent away from the main house, and there were, according to the brochure, over 120 varieites available. There weren't that many on show or sale but the choice of what they had was amazing. Far too many to make an informed choice and there was no way we could take one of each. For a start we'd have forgotten the names before we were out of the marquee. So we um-ed and ah-ed and eventually bought a selection:
- Foxes delight - crisp and juicy
- Red devil - hard and crunchy
Both from a farm shop set up in the slightly off-putting 'midden yard', along with some Buerre Hardy pears which were crisp and crunchy, not soft and gooey like so many of the crappy ones you get at Asda. Add to that a couple of bottles of pure apple juice (which is perfect with Żubrówka) and we were loaded down before we even got to the main attraction.
From the Erddig stocks we went a bit mad:
- Tower of Glamis - to cook with
- Lord Lambourne - a crisp, slightly tart, eating apple
- Rushmead's Kernel - a very tart apple that stores well. These have been wrapped and stored and will come out at Christmas as a special treat. Assuming, of course, they last that long.
We were disappointed that no quince were available, nor were there any damsons or plums. There was plenty of other entertainment, though, and I discovered the £3.50 I charge for a 1lb jar of honey fell far short of the £5 they were charging for pretty much the same thing. With mouths open, we wandered past a potter, basket maker and tree surgeon to end up watching the Border Morris Dancers, who were very good and very entertaining. The girls were very sedate, flicking their hankies and skipping around, but the boys, all blacked up in 'disguise' were a bit more raucous and obviously enjoyed themselves.
