The Dangers Of Soft Fruit

SD and I decided to have one last go at picking the now slightly over ripe plums on the ancient plum tree overhanging the barn at the farm last night.

Last year Miss Mac helped us, you can read about the cow shit, wasps and bull here if you like so I asked her if she fancied giving it another go.

'Can't' she said, 'I need to Nair my tash tonight ...'
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Okaay ... Anyway ...  Moving on ...

SD had just one stipulation when we got to the farm.

'Please don't wander off taking effing photos while I'm half way up a tree and you are supposed to be holding the bottom of the ladder ...'

AS IF!!

I mean, DURR, I KNOW that obviously ...

Honestly, you take 30 seconds for yourself to snap a pic of a dragonfly JUST THE ONCE and you're labelled for life!

So unfair ...

Now, as mentioned, the plums are a LITTLE over ripe, we've picked several buckets full already and my freezer is fast filling up and we still have the Bramleys and blackberries to pick (but that's probably another story ...).

I stood under that bloody tree being BOMBARDED by falling soft fruit as SD plucked away high above me.

I say SOFT in the loosest sense of the word you understand because in fact plums have a very bloody hard stone in the middle so you briefly get a soft splat of exploding mush before being hit by a really hard pointy rock and it HURTS!

SD thought HE had the worst of it being up a shaky ladder clinging on to a rather rickety old tree with branches liable to snap at any given moment and me being his only saviour holding the ladder steady but let me tell you:

HE HAD THE EASY JOB!

I was positively pelted with purple plum shaped missiles and totally covered in sticky sludge.  I was not very happy ...

SD climbed onto the roof of the barn which left me free to hop off the bottom of the ladder and stand to the side of the barn and catch plums as he threw them to me.

I think my catching ratio was about 1:3 and I'm a GOOD catcher!  It's almost impossible to see those bloody things hurling towards you especially as the light was just starting to fade.  I'm pretty sure SD was aiming them AT me just for fun - you really don't want to know where I got plum juice!

'Catch' shouted SD and, as I looked up, a plum fell from the tree, rolled down the roof of the barn gathering speed like a bloody bowling ball, shot off the edge of the roof and SMACKED ME IN THE EYE! (and yes, I DO have a slight black eye developing nicely although I may just have to enhance it a little with make up to get a suitable sympathy vote from SD ...)

Soon after that we decided to pack up ...

Before we put the ladder away I asked SD to take a photo of me up the ladder (just so that I could pretend on FB that I was the one risking life and limb for the 'drupe fruit of the subgenus Prunus of the genus Prunus' )

Now I just had TWO stipulations for him:

'Don't make me look fat and don't make me look ugly'

He failed abysmally on both counts so no photo I'm afraid but I WAS up a ladder, HONEST!!