Unseasonal autumn weather...

I remember last year's visit to Erddig was sunny, but with a definite chill in the air. This year, however, shorts would have been more appropriate as it was warm even as we left Farnworth. Plenty of people thought an apple festival was a good idea and we had to queue for fifteen minutes to get into the grounds. The set-up was similar to last year, except the blacked-up Border Morris Men had been replaced by an altogether more genteel group who didn't look like they'd shout or wield sticks as phallic trophies. I don't know really, as we missed their performance, preferring instead to slob about on a bench in the shade.

Apples were purchased and we also bought a beautiful turned oak fruit bowl. To celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary we needed something in wood and we had often admired bowls at other events, always shying away from paying the price. But we decided that we could justify the cost for our anniversary and the bowl now sits, crammed full of apples, on the table.

So what did we come away with? Several bottles of apple juice, both sweet and medium, went into the fridge, with the apples getting used in the following ways:

• Tower of Glamis: made into puree and frozen
• Arthur Turner: made into a crumble and eaten
• Norfolk Beauty: some floury eaters for Agnieszka
• Beauty of Kent: to be made into a crumble later this week
• Lord Lambourne: bright red eaters, sat in the bowl
• Orleans Reinette: sharp, crispy eaters for me
• Pitmaston Pineapple: small, juicy, incredibly tasty; these won't last long
• Ashmead's Kernal: wrapped in paper, stored in a bag in the porch for Christmas 

Despite the list being quite long, these won't last us for more than a couple of weeks. It really does make us want to plant and maintain an orchard. The look of most of the apples is not of supermarket high quality, some are lumpy and mis-shapen, but the taste is amazing and surely that is more important.

Smacznego!