Heritage Apples at the Library

 About a dozen people gathered for Ainsleigh Rice's talk on Heritage Apples, which turned out to be a fascinating look at the detective work that researchers have to do to correctly identify the different varieties.

These days, it's possible to get a DNA fingerprint of the apple variety, and the National Fruit Collection has a huge collection of these - but it's still possible to find something that has never been seen by the NFC, and it's also true that mistakes happen, and apples are mis-named or renamed.  One of the four apple varieties Ainsleigh talked about, Brithmawr, turned out to have been renamed by a rival plant nursery as Pride of the Orchard, and the original grower even had a note printed in his catalogues warning of this unethical practice.

The first apple to be featured was Gabalva - which comes from Cardiff (not related to Cabalva across the river from Hay).  The variety was discovered at Aberglasney Hall, and Cardiff Castle is about to replant some trees; the original breeder was the head gardener for the Marquis of Bute, and worked at Cardiff Castle.

Then there was Hitchin's Pippin, or Hedge Apple, Brithmawr and finally the much more complicated story of Egglestone Styre, which presently has two rival claimants for the name, one by way of Tasmania!  After seeing the painstaking way that the evidence was put together for the previous three apples (including tracing a link from Rutland to Crickhowell by way of a Victorian wedding) I'd tend to side with the non-Tasmanian option, which actually has paper records to support it.  The Bulmers sales records had a sale listed to an orchard on the other side of Herefordshire of 52 trees in 1934 - the orchard still exists, and they still have their records which show that they bought 52 trees, and where they planted them.  Unfortunately, they didn't like Egglestone Styre as a cider apple, so they cut off the tops of those trees, and grafted new varieties onto the root stock. 

Apple trees are wierd like that.  It's impossible to grow a variety from seed - just about anything apple shaped would come up - so keeping the variety going is done by grafting scions of the original tree onto root stock.

Fortunately for the investigators, in this case the orchard workers missed some of the original fruiting branches, so the trees that now exist carry fruit of both varieties!  Since one is yellow and the others (one of them was Dabinett) are red, they were easy to tell apart!

All the apples mentioned in the talk were there on the table in front of Ainsleigh.  When I went in to the talk, the apples were just apples.  By the end of the talk, I was amazed that I hadn't noticed all of those Really Obvious Differences between them!

Now is probably a good moment to mention the Marcher Apple Network, which does a lot of good apple related work locally, and only costs £20 a year to join.

Also, Ainsleigh is hosting a walk around his own orchard in Cusop next Sunday, weather permitting, time to be arranged.

This was the first Enchanted Hour that Mary Anne arranged, since the librarian who started it can no longer carry on.  I hope it's the first of many under the 'new management'!

Spooky Season

 

                                            Here's the latest seasonal post box topper!

Enchanted Hour - Apples

 The next Enchanted Hour at the Library will be on Friday 11th October at 2pm.  

Ainsleigh Rice will be talking about Heritage Apples.

Father Richard's CD

 I was meeting a friend outside the church this afternoon, and as I was a few minutes early I slipped inside.

On sale at the table at the back of the church is a new CD by Father Richard.  It's called Parish Notes and includes a variety of extemporisation on classical tunes, a couple of Jerome Kern tunes and some classical music - all for the organ, of course.  I'm playing it now in the background, and it's very good.  The price is £10.  

Father Richard's event at the Winter Festival, where he plays the organ for the silent film Metropolis, is already sold out, by the way, so the CD is a good way to get a flavour of his playing whenever you want!

While I was there I also picked up the latest issue of Way on High.  It was a bit of a surprise to see that they are commemorating the death of David Rees in 2000 - he was the vicar of Hay before Father Richard, and I knew him quite well.  It doesn't seem that long ago!

I also noticed that Father David is now the vicar of Clyro as well as Hay.  This is in addition to the churches at Llanigon and Capel-y-ffin, which have been looked after by the vicar of Hay for many years.

He also reported on the pilgrimage of Our Lady down the Wye, which was a great success.  They hope to make it an annual occurance.

Winter Festival

 The brochure for the Winter Festival is now out, and the tickets are flying out!  I went up to the box office this morning and was only just in time for the events I wanted to see.

The dates this year are Thursday 28th November to Sunday 1st December, and for the first time in years I'm going to miss the Switching on of the Christmas Lights on Friday evening, because I will he heading for the church to watch Father Richard play the organ for the film Metropolis!  (I could do both, but it would be a bit of a rush).

Then on Saturday morning I'm going to see George Nash talk about the Neolithic tombs of Wales, also in St Mary's Church.

Other highlights of the weekend are the Quentin Blake Exhibition and a talk on the demons, witches and ghosts of Christmas by Sarah Clegg, John Fitzpatrick and Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk at Hay Castle.

There's also a cello concert at St Mary's Church on Saturday evening, a guided walk on Sunday, Tom Bullough (local author) talking to artist Jackie Morris about Writing and Rivers, Natalie Haynes talking about Goddesses in Greek Myth, Jenny Eclair, Carol Vordeman, Paterson Joseph, Jonathan Dimbleby and David Olusoga, Luke Evans, Ali Smith and more!

There's also an online pass for people who can't be there in person to watch from home for selected events.

If I had unlimited funds, I'd be going to a lot more than two events!

I also find it interesting that one of the sponsors of the Winter Festival this year is Visit Seattle, which is where the World Science Fiction Convention will be held next year.

New Exhibition at The Chair

 The exhibition that caused all that publicity has now gone, to be replaced by an exhibition by Polly James.  She does pencil sketches of animals, mainly dogs and horses.

Nothing rude.

Or pink.

Art or Pornography?

 According to BBC Hereford and Worcester, police were called to The Chair gallery in Hay the other day, because of complaints about a picture in the window.  They warned that the picture might constitute a public order offence, but they have not said whether further action will be taken yet.

It's very pink.

I haven't taken a picture, because I am rubbish at taking photos through glass, but it's a long, narrow rectangular picture of a naked woman with her legs spread wide - well, almost naked; she's wearing pink cowboy boots.

Apparently there was a meeting about the picture yesterday afternoon at the gallery - I only found out about it afterwards - and there is a visitor's book now where people can record their thoughts about the picture, which was painted by art student Poppy Baynham.  The exhibition is a joint venture with her sister.

The picture isn't something I'd hang on my wall at home, but I think there is a useful discussion to be had about the difference between art and pornography (or is there a distinct difference?).

At any rate, nakedness in art goes back to the beginning of art itself.  Maybe it's the prominent position of the picture that is the problem - but then perfectly reputable art galleries display statues of naked people - all those Greek and Renaissance statues of young men didn't originally have fig leaves in strategic positions.  Mostly, the Victorians added those!

The exhibitions at The Chair don't go on for very long, so in a couple of weeks all this will be past history anyway.