Chateau Daphne was the story of this mythical apple brandy and its grocer's preparations [for all those local, national & transnational events that will inevitably be planned] to mark the 1000th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and the establishment of this England with its magnificent castles and towering cathedrals.
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On the road from Newhaven to Dieppe.
Chateau Daphne was also the label on selected bottles of juice from an orchard in Stanmer on England's south-east coast.
A season between harvests [2024-2025] was recorded for this photo-journal in and around that orchard.
The most recent posts below are the ones presented uppermost.
In some photos [for which permission has not yet been sought from those pictured] some mythical mask of a boy or girl has been superimposed upon each head.
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21 September 2025
Today was Apple Harvest Day at Stanmer Park. There were lots of activities organised by the Fruit Factory/Permaculture Trust; lots of families were milling around in the gardens, village & orchards; and the weather stayed mostly lovely and fine.
This day now completes that cycle of photos which I began with last year’s Apple Day; from harvest to harvest; from autumn through winter to spring and summer, and now another autumn; a year of those apples growing on those trees.
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1 September 2025
It’s the beginning of September and while some apples are now bigger, most remain quite small, maybe due to the hot summer that we've just had with not much rain.
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29 July 2025
We saw those baby apples are now bigger apples in July, on a visit to the orchard with my mum and our friend Liz.
In the meanwhile, 48 bottles of apple juice from last year's crop had been purchased; a Chateau Daphne label had been applied to each bottle; and those bottles were subsequently distributed to friends & family. A photo of one of those labelled bottles can be seen at the top of this page
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8 June 2025
Baby apples are now growing on those trees, along that path through Home Farm's orchard.
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27 April 2025
Our famalam returned to enjoy those Permaculture Trust celebrations in and around Home Farm Orchard with all that blossom on its trees on Apple Blossom Sunday.
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30 March 2025
From every branch, new buds have begun springing into life.
Lunching around the Story Tree.
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2 February 2025
On this Groundhog Day, we paid a visit to the orchard, to gather around that Story Tree and toast the coming seasons with a bottle of apple juice purchased from the Fruit Factory in Stanmer village.
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Early in 2025
Looking towards The Story Tree, in the last days of winter, looking forward to the spring.
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Late in 2024
Apple Day at Stanmer Park in Autumn.
At season's end, after many of those fallen apples had been collected for making cider, the rest were left to return to the soil.
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PLAN
From that harvest was purchased and labelled multiple bottles of apple juice for family & friends.
Another aim will be to purchase a batch of cider from that harvest from which one or more contractors will then distil a commemorative apple brandy.
After some apples from Monks House in Rodmell were added to that mix, our label might read, since her ashes were scattered by its orchard: May contain traces of Virginia Woolf.
One bottle taken to Normandy in 2027/2028 (to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror) could be - just for fun - sold from a shop in one of the Calvados communes.
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See below
This small book contains a fable concerning the origins of the imaginary business.
Clicking on a corner of this book will turn its pages.
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