the orchard path

The path begins at the wicket gate behind the kitchen and runs the long edge of the small orchard. There are seventeen trees, of which eleven still bear: russets mostly, a single bramley, three pippins, and a quince at the far end that no one prunes. In August the windfalls begin and the path becomes, by quiet agreement, a route walked carefully. By October the path is sodden underfoot with what no one has gathered.

Walkers see, from this path: the back of the kitchen chimney, the slope of the garden, the upper field, and — if the leaves are down — the spine of the long roof. There is one bench, half-overgrown, of which more is said elsewhere. The path is walked, in the main, by anyone who wants an apple, and, in autumn, by those who do not. It is also walked by the kitchen cat, which is not always a cat.

It connects, at its stile, to the orchard-to-chapel cut and, at its gate, to the circular walk. The dawn walkers use it in September. The custodian uses it always.