All you need is a system

The new government thinks there are some things it can fix without spending much money, by fixing the system rather than pouring cash into something that doesn't work. Maybe the health service needs better IT (it definitely does!), maybe housebuilding needs less bureaucratic planning processes, maybe water authorities need better regulation. Systems definitely matter. When public services have been starved of cash for more than a decade, no-one has had time to pay attention to the systems they are working with; technology, society and needs have changed, but the systems have stayed the same. So there is probably some truth in what they say, but changing systems isn't easy, isn't cost-free and results take time. I wish them luck

I don't think we even realised we have an apple-pressing system. We have certainly never sat down and discussed it or made a plan. Looking at this picture, you are probably thinking that's obvious! And every year is different: sometimes family are here to help, sometimes friends, sometimes the helpers need no direction, sometimes they have never done it before. This year, we were on our own. I wondered how far we would get. I didn't really feel very prepared. I thought we might get tired, and need a second day

Somehow, everything clicked. The day started by getting the equipment down from the attic, or out of the shed into the garden. Everything got a wash and rinse. The apples went from the shed into the scratter (the blue tube); the pulp came out of the bottom into the yellow trug; we tipped it from the trug into the wooden press (lined with a nylon mesh bag, screwed to a pallet so that it does not spin when you screw down the press; the juice flows from the press into a procession of the blue or white kitchen (Ikea!) bowls; these are carried inside for the juice to be filtered into barrels; the pressed pulp is emptied into the big green trug, or old plastic boxes - later we took it to the orchard to be composted

You see, a system! To my amazement, we completed five pressings before lunch, which filled our juice-holding capacity of 50 litres! I'll start 8 or 9 litres of cider tomorrow and the rest will go into bottles and be pastuerised in batches - for which we have a system! I suppose if the government need any advice...