No school today because of the strike, so we took advantage of the wonderful weather to have some quality time with Ruadhri and go on a sunny fruit-picking bike ride. We did our usual route in reverse for a change, so for once I wasn’t speeding downhill past this incredible apple tree. I think there are more apples than leaves on it!

I also finally got a photo of these two old cars slowly rusting away among the brambles in what used to be someone’s front garden.

We stopped at our favourite deserted farm, St Anne’s, and picked a few grapes to keep us going. There are three different sorts growing against the south-facing barn wall. You can see two of them here.

Up to now we’ve resisted stopping for any chestnuts on our rides, since we’ve overdone our chestnut hoarding in the past. But these ones were too big to cycle past.

We reluctantly cycled away from them eventually.

On our last stop along a track, Chris and I filled our rucksacks with windfall pears before struggling home with them. I’ve just weighed mine – 8 kg.

Sadly there was a fly in the ointment. We came home to find a local person who is known to have a problem telling the difference between what’s his and what belongs to other people firkling around in one of our stables, so I had to do a bit of shouting while Chris looked fierce.

But, despite that,  it was still a lovely morning.