Monday 10th October 2022 - Poppy Appeal Changes and a Most Welcome Sit Down

Last Thursday, I received my order from the Royal British Legion, so I am now fully stocked for this year’s Poppy Appeal which commences on 27th October. There won’t be any more house to house collections in the village – Covid has put paid to these but there will be the usual trays of poppies etc. and collecting tins placed in business premises in Overstrand and at the school, plus I will be supplying wreaths. There has been a major change this year, as to how we Poppy Appeal Organisers (PAO) can operate. Briefly, the amount as a suggested donation for poppies and other items, has been abolished and wreaths will now be sold, whereas in the past they were available for a donation. The selling of wreaths is down to HMRC who now require them to be sold and for VAT to be included in the price.

Despite the drought, fruit trees have been producing well this year. In our case, we have a couple of exceptions; our peach and apricot trees. With many windfalls from our apple tree, I started bottling them on Saturday morning. While I made a start, Peter picked the remaining apples and added those which showed signs of a bug having invaded the fruit, to the windfalls. I prepared five Kilner jars ready for the oven and decided to change the method slightly for the next batch. All the jars have a good seal but with the first five it looks as though the top layer of apple is a bit mushy but this won’t be a problem as I can use the mush to make apple sauce. This is the first year I have bottled, so it’s all very much a learning curve to find out which method gives the best results. In the end the whole process took me the entire morning and after standing for a good four hours, a sit down at lunch time was most welcome. I kept back one portion of apples to make a blackberry and apple pie for yesterday’s dessert – a favourite of Peters.

Yesterday’s sunrise promised a beautiful autumn day, which is exactly how it turned out. With the weather set to be sunny and dry for the week, I think I will make a start tomorrow on getting the garden ready for winter.