Keeping the doctor away

If the old adage is to be believed there will be no medical practitioners visiting Average Images this year given the quantity of apple blossom on our trees. Assuming, of course, that they all get pollinated and turn into fruit. This cooking apple tree is the last of our apple trees to have flowers – strange how they blossom at slightly differing times – presumably Natures way of maximising the pollination period.

Actually the earliest variant of this saying is from Pembrokeshire, Wales recorded in 1866:

Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread

Only 20 years later and it had become:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

Modern scientific analysis seems to conclude that there are some health benefits with eating an apple on a daily basis – but surely eating any fresh fruit and vegetables can only be good for you?