Carillon Magazine

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Issue 14

Just Out of Reach  

Betty Page  - Market Rasen

It served me right, really. It wasn't as if there weren't enough apples on the tree to make pies though the winter and most of the spring, I had to have that one. It was the biggest, most beautiful Bramley I had ever seen. Shiny green with just a touch of yellow on the side exposed to the afternoon sun. I imagined my husband's look of delight when I presented it to him next Easter. He loved a good mellow Bramley.

 Just out of reach it was, even though I stood on a kitchen stool on top of the old garden table. Our ladder was too long for me to carry on my own. I put the half-full basket on the table, hung on to the branch on my left, leaned forward and stretch as far as I could go. My right hand was within an inch of that prize specimen when the stool slipped. Down it went landing upside down a second before I did. My bum hit one of the legs and it took five minutes for me to draw breath evenly again.

I lay there for quite a while looking up through the leaves at that apple. When I started to drool over the thought of it baked stuffed with raisins and brown sugar I went for a cup of tea.

That blessed Bramley stayed on the tree for nearly another week but it was a whole month before my bruises disappeared.