This must be the year for "the little tree who could".  First cherries, then apples.  Lordy, lordy - the little apple tree we planted a couple of years ago, is going completely BANANAS!  (I mean, like bananas-crazy, not bananas-the fruit).  Just got back from a weekend in the country with two huge baskets full of gorgeous, tangy, crispy rose apples I picked off the tree.  Only problem is, what to do with them all?  I have a few plastic bags full of windfall apples I am going to juice, make sauce etc with.  But what about all those fresh, crisp lovelies?

That's where the small village charm of Riga comes in.  Realizing I was in a race against time, this morning I loaded a fabric shoulder bag with apples.  And doled them out to everyone I knew.  Friends on the tram got apples, mums at school got apples, my work colleagues got apples, my translating client got apples, and so did 2 friends I met on the way to work/back home.  By the end of the morning I had a spring in my step and an empty bag, and was humming Billy Bragg's "I am the milkman of human kindness... let me leave an extra pint" happily to myself.

This arvo I made a favourite around this time of year - apple pancakes.  Terrifically tasty, even for kids who eat fruit with suspicion. My friend Ieva has a crackpot theory that bad people simply cannot make good pancakes - and I tend to agree with her.  As for me, my pancakes don't always turn out well.  Occasionally they turn out rubbery, or burnt, or like cardboard...hmmmm.  But today - today I must be a good person.  Because those apple pancakes were tremendous.

And about the top pic - I have realized that apple season coincides with the start of school - in this part of the world, anyway.  Kids doing their homework and crunching on apples.  Maybe that's where "an apple for the teacher" concept came from??