The very best of order please as your raise a merry toast ‘To the Year of the Cherry!’

‘ TO the Year of the Cherry.’ Clink of glasses amidst giggles and gurgles. ‘To the Year of the Cherry!’

It was the end of a long and merry evening. The cherry was toasted by the assembled company over the jumbled remnants of a good supper, a very good supper. We had already raised our drinks ‘To Friendship!’, ‘To Family!’, ‘To Good Health!’, ‘To Ireland’ in keeping with convention. A nice bottle (or three) of Rioja encouraged playful variations on the theme: ‘To Music!’, we chorused. ‘To Cycling to Work!’, we cried ‘To Onion Rings with Chips’, we thundered.

We were on a roll: ‘To Anyone but United!’, ‘To Woolly Slippers!’, ‘To Jogging Bottoms!’. We laughed so hard over the jogging bottoms – heaven only knows why - that it took several attempts before everyone delivered the call together: ‘To Jogging Bottoms!’. The effect was still a little ragged, to be honest, but never mind. And finally, to mop up the last of the wine, I called for the best of order and the toast ‘To the Year of the Cherry!’

Then it was time to start stacking plates and putting on the kettle. As we drifted back to the table with steaming mugs of tea and coffee to bring down the curtain on proceedings, it was Roger who asked the sober question. Roger was the one who had sat out ‘Anyone but United’ in purse-lipped silence, after declaring an intention to christen his next born José. Now Roger wanted to know exactly why 2018 is the Year of the Cherry...

The garden at Medders Manor has flourished in the face of drought. We have a decent crop of spuds. The Roosters more than make up for any lack of bulk by delivering plenty of taste and high quality flesh. We have been blessed with raspberries to beat the band. The sun-kissed main crop was plentiful, and now the autumn afterthought is yielding hefty berries. We have enjoyed no end of peas and beans, while Hermione has brought on some magnificent lettuce – some green-leaved, some coppery.

The hot conditions prompted phenomenal productivity on the tomato front, across the range from big and beefy to small and sweet. As a result, tomato soup is a constant feature of our menu, while tomatoes are added to just about every recipe, particularly curries and casseroles. We give tomatoes away when we call to visit anyone and we press punnets of tomatoes on our guests as we usher them out the door of Medders Manor.

The supply of fresh tomatoes is finally tapering off but we find that the apples are now equally prolific as they come in turn on stream. So, stand by to enjoy apple tarts, Dutch apple cakes, pork with apple sauce and fruit salads dominated by chunks of apple. If it really is the case that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then we may be close to immortality.

Yet 2018 is not the Year of the Tomato, nor the Year of the Apple, nor even the Year of the Rooster. We harvest tomatoes, apples and spuds every year after all while the title surely should go to some more memorable crop.

Unfortunately, this has not been the Year of Gooseberry for although the bushes prospered, there was no fruit whatsoever. There is a case for declaring the Year of the Hazelnut, even if the trees are not exactly groaning under the weight of the crop. The truth is that the hazelnuts average of one and a half per tree – three nuts in total. This is the first time that we have had any at all, so we must be grateful, but the expectation is that future crops will be greater. Their day will come.

Which brings us to the cherry.

I confess forgetting the modest little tree at the side of the Rolling Acres was a cherry tree at all. Then I wandered past one morning in July to find my eye caught by something perfectly round and red and gleaming. This was the one and only cherry after which the year is named.

Though it was gone, eaten by some greedy bird, the next time I went to look for it, the cherry has not been forgotten. There may never be another but it is wonderful that it ever existed…

What I wonder is: if Roger’s next born happens to be a girl, will he really insist on calling her José??