Fruit from the Desert

As we came back to the work site in the desert to the camp, my Omani companion asked me what my home was like. I said it was flat just like the desert, but green and wet. Often wet as far as the eye can see. He looked at the blazing white expanse and laughed at such a strange idea.

That contrast was the only connection that I expected to make. But I bought home a big chunk of gypsum as a souvenir. Our apple trees suffer from bitter pit and after the long, unusually sodden winter, the orchard is still full of standing water. One solution, it transpires, is gypsum. So my hunk of gypsum has been donated to the grand old bramley and another deeply satisfying connection is made.