Victoria Plums
Last week I was at the Old Place to check it was in good order for potential buyers wanting to view the property. Setting aside my feelings on the impending sale of the family home (a home for me in my youth and latterly in parenthood) it was good to take another look around the garden and reminisce with Josh about the times spent there.
The veg patch is no longer recognisable as such, but the fruit trees have been very productive this summer. Ironically Josh and I decided to pick some of the plums excellent plums. The irony lies in the fact that when the Old Man was in charge of the show we felt no compunction to harvest them despite cajoling and instruction from the Lord of the Manor. In his day, he would gather them in by the ton and the freezer has a good few bags of plums of varying vintages. But picking them the other weekend they tasted good. We also picked some pears, but TOM would have sighed at the comedy duo (trio with Josh’s GF in attendance) trying to reach the best boughs of plums with a dodgy step-ladder and some old loppers.
Elsewhere the colour of nostalgia was of a different hue as I saw that my own Worcester Pearmain tree at the end of the garden has a good number of apples on it despite having only a few spindly twigs masquerading as branches. It was pleasing to see and I am still intent on getting the tree transplanted to the new estate. The sapling is of sentimental value as it was given to me by a grateful parent whose extremely talented off-spring it had been my good fortune to teach and coach. They were parents who had a balanced and intelligent outlook on life and were always open, honest and grateful to those who were doing their best to educate their children. Happy days when parents and departmental managers were empathetic and supportive. I hope that next year I will have Molly and TC’s Worcester Pearmains in my own front garden.
We can’t transplant any plums trees, but, at Mrs B’s request, we did acquire a greengage plant from a visit to the open day at Pennard Plants over the summer. So in future I can look forward to telling any visitors to the Midlife Garden to “pick some plums” and perhaps in due course I too will be filling my chest freezer with the soft fruit harvest.
Plum crumble anyone?
Midlife Gardener 