Scrumping has it moments

To scrump is an old English word that means to steal fruit from an orchard, or fruit trees. I would not recommend it, however had an embarrassing moment when my harvesting of fruit on "abandoned" land turned into scrumping.

Only having a small section that was completely blank a year I carry around in my mind a map and timing of when various fruits trees that I pass, that appear to be on abandoned land come into season.

There is a delicious plum, big, yellow sweet and juicy on a nearby research farm. This research farm is right on the outskirts of town, and years ago they must have brought up house sections and moved the houses along, as in the fields next to the road there is plums, grapefruit, feijoas, mandarins, kiwifruit and other trees that look like fruit trees but I have no idea what they are. Anyway it is the plums and grapefruit that draw me there, so sweet so nice and heavenly. I first noticed them when I used to work on the now abandoned buildings on this research farm and have enjoyed the plums and grapefruit every year since.

So today during my lunch break went down and jumped the fence like I have been doing for the last, so say at least 3 if not 4 years without any problems. This paddock is next to a house that for ever has been rented to people, and they have never cared. Well this year things have changed - dooh!

Happy picking away from this wonderfully laden tree, noticing that not many are yet ripe and will have to come back next week. This lady comes storming across the paddock on a mission, turns out that she has kids at home, and her husband is not the farm manager. She was not happy out the stranger wandering and stealing her fruit. Apologised and used all my people skills to try and befriend her, but to no avail. I was doomed to be the enemy and she had worked up such a good mad, that a few kind words was not going to change anything. So being the polite person I was stopped my picking and move on....

Guess I will not be going back there for grapefruit nor the ripe plums as they come on. Very disappointing, dang which I had know that the disused land was not disused anymore! I'm sure that she would have been nice to talk to if I had asked first.

Guess that sometimes those abandoned places come back to life.

(thanks to wiki for the pic)