Satellite studio visit to Jo Chapman's temporary studio in Downham Market. Jo's done some beautiful drawings of personality-filled apple trees. Four of the Satellite group visited and we discussed ancient orchards. It reminded me of the Garden of Cyrus line about trees in rows and grids, Cyrus, " disposing his trees like his armies in regular ordination ..... brought the treasures of the field into rule and circumspection". I visited a gnarly old orchard in Alfriston some days ago, all propped up branches and rapidly ripening fruit. I had black mulberries off a tree there - the first time since being horribly sick after eating mulberries in a Chaikhaneh / teahouse in the mountains outside Tehran. These ones were explosively juicy and I had some more a couple of days later off the grand tree at Great Dixter.
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