The week between our holiday and going back to school was a quiet one mostly spent at home. There was plenty of washing and cleaning to do and the boys were happy to have a few days mostly spent on screens!

We did go to my mum’s one day though. She has three apple trees in the garden and the apples have come early this year. My dad always used to climb the trees to pick them so without him here to do it we stepped in to help with my brother.

The trees are only quite small, and fairly easy to climb so my brother and Toby went up the tress while me, my mum and Gabe stayed on the ground to bag up the apples.

Gabe did have a go in the try but was a bit nervous to go very high. Toby absolutely loved it though – he declared apple harvest day his new favourite day of the year!

I think we picked 9 big bags in all, and I brought 2 of them home. It took a good few hours of peeling and chopping and I’ve ended up with I think 7 portions of stewed apple in the freezer ready for making crumbles over the next year!

If you have apples and you’re looking for some inspiration of what to do with them, I wrote this post a few years ago with lots of apple recipes that I collected from other bloggers… I’d love to know if you have any other favourites.

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.