The Pluscarden community retreat, scheduled for the first week in October, was nearly cancelled this year when our booked preacher had to cancel due to sickness. Happily Fr. Bill Russell WF was in the area, and agreed to stand in as our preacher at a very late stage.
Fr. Bill was once very briefly a Pluscarden novice, back in 1977, with the name Br. Christopher. But he left, and joined the White Fathers instead. In spite of long periods away in Africa, or latterly in Jerusalem, he has always remained a friend of our community. This is the second retreat Fr. Bill has preached for us.
One usual effect of a community retreat is that the guest house is empty for these days. This lightens the burden of work on various brethren. On the other hand, guests can be very helpful with such garden tasks as picking apples.
This year we have a huge crop. The Pluscarden grounds contain very many apple trees, of many different varieties, and all of those not yet picked are now heavily laden with fruit.
So, the retreat notwithstanding, all able-bodied brethren have been asked to turn out for apple picking. In fact, in mellow Autumn sunshine, few jobs could be more satisfying, or more suitably monastic.
2024 has been a notable year for apples here, in that last year's crop merged seamlessly with this year's. This June we were still eating perfectly nice apples from last year, when the first of the 2024 earlies started to come in.
The community could never eat anything like all the apples we produce, so large quantities are set aside for turning into juice. Already the first batches have been processed in this way.
Meanwhile our new building is looking very fine, very handsome, now freed from its scaffolding cage. Indoors, the toilets, showers and basins are now fitted, the electricity works, the water flows, and the plumbing all works. Outside, the surrounding landscaping work is under way. Plenty remains to be done: yet Robertsons Builders remain confident of completing their work on schedule, by mid-October.
