Of apples and quinces

I’m delighted to have been invited to run a creative writing workshop at Hospitalfield, as part of their annual Apple Day, a delicious extravaganza of all things apple! My prep involved a lovely wee wander around the Walled Garden (I love my job!) and was totally inspired by what I saw. They have quince trees!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a quince in reality and I immediately thought of Edward Lear’s poem’ The Owl and the Pussy Cat.’ I can remember almost every word of it, although I don’t ever recall ‘learning’ it at school or at home. Once of those childhood curiosities. Anyway- here is the ‘quince’ bit:

                         “They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

                          Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

                          And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

                          They danced by the light of the moon.”

Isn’t that bewitching?! One of my students spoke recently about a strange family teaspoon (we were making ‘Holy Grails’ out of mundane objects, as you do in some of my classes!) and they’d dubbed it ‘the runcible spoon’, which I think is delightful!

I managed to amass a great deal of writing prompts while strolling in the Hospitalfield gardens, so why not come along on October 7th if you’re in the Arbroath area? Among all the apples, you’ll find me peddling plant folklore, old myths and the magic of the ‘what if?’ Simply delicious!

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