Year 8 - still truckin
I'm a little late with my musings this year, COVID hit me this Xmas and I'm only now climbing out of that pit. 2022 w as pretty mental on the apple front as much as anything else; in 2021 I was scrabbling a bit for apples but last year they were everywhere, boughs heaving through the long hot summer that merged into autumn. The sheer number of wasps getting caught up in the excitement of pressing was a new challenge - I had to fish out loads who had gone for a dip in the juice coming through the press and discovered that their backstroke wasn't up to it. And the levels of sugar (which translates to alcohol) were far higher than previous years, driven by the heat and lack of rain. I had to leave some on the ground as I only have so much tank space but they'll go back into mulching next year's crop. Depressingly after two years when cider ha d a bit of a buzz a bout it during lockdown, it seems as a drink to have sunk back into obscurity. I guess that is the fickle n