This is me in the community orchard at Buckland Monachorum in Devon when I called in to see my lovely friend Celia Steven ‘the Bramley lady’ on my way to Saltash. What a beautiful and peaceful setting for an orchard full of local varieties and of course including a ‘Bramley.’ Well no orchard is worthy of the name without the greatest cooker in the world, just a collection of apples otherwise.

No one goes to see Celia ( more about her later ) without coming away with a goody bag and in mine I found apples, of course, a bottle of apple juice from the orchard and a super little pocket book called The Bramley Apple Stories. Oh yes I must also mention the lunch of pigeon with black pudding on a bed of mash in the Drake Manor Inn.