Nightscrumping

I have a friend who just last week knocked on the front door of a house to enquire about the apple tree in its front garden. It seemed that the entire crop was going to waste; the grass beneath the branches carried the low drone of an army of wasps scratching away deep inside warm, fermenting fruit. In an "I might as well" moment, my friend took a deep breath, knocked on the door and politely asked if he might procure a handful of apples off the tree. "You’re not having any - goodbye" was the sharp and somewhat resolute response - the door was pretty much slammed in his face.

I've spoken before about the garden-bound Pear tree that I pass on my walk to and from the station each day. I enjoy its youthful flourish of blossom each Spring; a confetti-like festoon that scatters tiny petals across the pavement each time the wind blows. I marvel at tiny green fruit droplets that appear on its branches, swelling slowly in the Summer sun as the season drifts into Autumn. I despair as one by one they tumble to the ground, quickly rendered a vinegary sludge by insects, mould and the heavy wheels of a family 4x4.

I freely admit to a bit of light scrumping when the opportunity presents itself. Nothing OTT - just enough to make dessert for the family, or to make the fruit bowl look a little less sorry for itself. So it was by the cover of darkness on Thursday night that I quickly confiscated half a dozen pears from the tree after getting home late from work. The lights of the house were out and the street was still - they tasted all the better for their shifty Moonlit acquisition.

Summer, 1997

It was probably around midnight when the taxi dropped me back at the village. As the car sped off, a beam of headlamp briefly sketched out the silhouette of a large object, slumped across the other side of the road. I swayed over to the shape - it was a dead badger.

It may seem stupid in retrospect, but such was my state - one of inebriation, that I immediately became consumed with grief. What a sorry waste! There he was, homeward bound to see Mrs Badger and the kids, and some bastard hit him! My duty soon became apparent. How could I let it suffer the cruel indignity of being slowly squashed into the tarmac by the morning traffic? I quickly resolved to fetch a shovel, scoop it up, and lay it to rest in the hedge. It was the right thing to do. As if being dispatched to The Great Set in the Sky by a Fiat Uno (possibly) wasn't enough!

Still seething at "Man's selfish disregard for the natural world with his roads", I plotted a wobbly course through the back garden and grappled around in the darkness for the shed. Ten minutes later, my fingers found the handle of a spade resting among a pile of bamboo canes. Stumbling back outside into the still night, I was ready. Tooled Up, as it were.

It was a big old beast, but I managed to slide the spade underneath it. A fish slice would not have sufficed. I barely noticed a pair of headlights appearing in the distance - too important was the task in hand. The low rumble of an engine got louder and louder; I figured it would pass me by. Probably just a grumbling father, dragged out of bed to pick up his daughter, keen to get back home. To my horror, at the point at which I lifted the badger up to waist height on the spade, the car pulled up next to me and a window wound down. John Turner, who I knew from school, peered out cautiously through the open window.

We chatted briefly, exchanging light-hearted pleasantries about our respective evenings. I may well have quipped that I was, "well pissed". Yet for some reason neither of us mentioned the fact that I was elevating a dead badger, three feet from the ground, with a rusty piece of gardening equipment. Perhaps it was an unspoken mark of respect between us, a tribute to innocent life lost? It's more likely he thought I'd beaten the poor creature to death with a shovel. Even after all these years, if we bump into each other in the street, the subject's off-limits. As the car pulled away, I slipped Old Brock carefully into the verge and hot-tailed it to bed. My work here was done.

Blue mussels