Applely helping out

On Saturday afternoon one Good Gymer discovered a new device: A scratter is a machine, resembling a medieval torture instrument full of teeth and blades, designed to mash up bits of fruit to ready them for pressing. The tool was being used as one of the activities at Chinbrook Meadows' apple day.

The tasks assigned to Good Gym were three-fold: cutting slices of rare apple types for visitors to try, bagging cooking apples for people to take away and, mainly, preparing the fruit for juicing. Four or five huge bags of apples were roughly chopped and fed into the scratter, with gleeful children turning the handle to convert the cut fruit to mush in a giant bucket. When the bucket was full it was emptied into a press and the kids were rewarded for their efforts with freshly squeezed apple juice. The apples having been chopped, scratted and pressed and with most of the cookers handed out to keen cooks, the Good Gymer secured their own bag of apples and ran off with dreams of crumble.