Quince for a Queen

I pruned this quince quite brutally, but seems to have done it good, covered in blossom. Let's see what the fruit is like, so far not been up to much. 

Quince in Portuguese is marmelo; the jam is marmelada, from which we get our word 'marmalade' - the story goes that it was England's Portuguese Queen, Catarina de Bragança, wife of Charles II, who introduced it to Britain. Oranges were cheaper than quince, so they were eventually substituted for it, but the name stuck.

Gratefuls:
- planting four trees today: a cherry, a loquat, a peach, and a nectarine; digging out the ground here is no joke, it's basically broken stone, my wrist is now painful, even though Mike did most of it
- sun dried bedding
- finished Light Perpetual, by Francis Spufford, amazing thought-provoking book about the lives of five children if they hadn't been killed by a bomb in 1944; I love the way he doesn't shy away from how awful people can be, but always with the hope of redemption... and think I understand Britain a lot better after reading this.