Apple Day - what a celebration!

Apple Day was a great success! We had a steady stream of people all day,
lots of new faces, some of whom took away leaflets and promised to come
back for more! A huge attraction was the apple press lent to us from
Church Farm, Ardley, and Brian, Teresa, Barbara, Alex and lots of
visitors all did a grand job in keeping the fresh juice flowing! Most
children went home with the most beautiful apple branches still bearing
apples twisting and turning over their cheeks and foreheads after just a
few minutes with Nico. Some of us did apple-printing and made colourful
pictures with Wenderlynn and lots of us sat and watched "In Transition"
and "Home". Everyone really appreciated Viv, Liz and Moira endlessly
supplying hot drinks, delicious soups and an extraordinary array of
appley cakes, scones, muffins, jam and apple butter - this event has
exposed how much culinary talent there lies in the Transition team!

We also offered people the chance to Pledge a Winter Warmer Treat to
themselves - a low energy indulgence to bring them nourishment and cheer
at the darkest time of the year ahead. They wrote their Pledge to
themselves on a card apple, hung it on the crab apple tree in the garden
and booked a date to do it in their diaries! Here's a taste of their
Pledges, just in case you want to do the same:

Spend a day making my quilt; Reading football books all afternoon; Visit
an art gallery in London; A walk in the pinetum; Have a 'girlie'
sleep-over with my friends; Making a candle-lit dinner; A day with my
husband without the children!; Dance to keep warm; A long massage after a
bubble bath; Scatter a few hundred acorns in a woodland ... there were
many more, all equally inspiring!

Some of the photos are in the moving slide show and we hope to put recipes up too.

The rain poured early morning, cleared in time for us to set up and then
arrived again in a deluge just as we were nearing the end of our
clearing up! We looked up as we were leaving to see a huge, complete
rainbow to the east - a perfect end to a perfect day!