Good Apples

Today, for the first time in my life, there has been no Queen Elizabeth II to preside over Remembrance Sunday. It's a strange feeling.

When I was in London on this day I would generally try to get to the service for Animals In War at the memorial on Park Lane. All the stuff at the Cenotaph would make me angry, actually the the Animals in War service would make me angry too, but because it was so much smaller I could get very close, and feel something other than rage that stops every other feeling from reaching my heart.

This is of course, why we like rage. People say it is cleansing, it really isn't. But it is intoxicating and all consuming; passion's loud cousin devours any paler feeling. Rage enabled my father to put his hand through a glass door and unlock it from inside.I will never forget his hand covered in blood, my mother's terror immediately drop as she called him an idiot, grew cool and strong, and instantly started nursing him, picking out the glass from the gashes in his arm, cleaning and bandaging his blood covered wrist. Much later I asked him how he did that, and he told me that anger takes all fear and pain away, that if you are angry enough you won't feel anything. He said he would teach me how to do it. He never did ,quite, but in fairness, I'm not bad at rage. I get what it is for.

It doesn't help me when it comes to all that stuff at the cenotaph. I get we couldn't avoid WWII given WWI, but we could have avoided WWI. I've known people wave it off and say 'something would have happened, [insert imperial power] would have...' Nothing makes me grind my teeth more. But like I say, it's the job of rage to eat sorrow.

Anyway.

I will not be watching the service this morning. Whether it is my endless fury at the safe mouthing respect at the dead, or because I am not ready for a new monarch, I don't know.

Meanwhile, the dwarf apple tree in our garden is less than a year in the ground, and has had fine fairy tale style fruit, all luscious red and green. I have left them long in bewilderment at just how late in the year they seem to ripen, tried one in October, cut it open to see its pips were still pale, and left the rest for later in the season.

Turns out that was the right decision. Now they are delectable, crisp and sweet and tangy, an excellent breakfast. Cheering too, somehow. One apple tree with delicious fruit is hardly Il faut cultiver notre jardin, and I daresay Voltaire would laugh at me for being so literal.

But still, it only takes one fine apple to lift a day.