Tuesday, June 05, 2007

The Revenge of the Loquat

Never insult a plant - they have their own ways of getting back at you. A couple of weeks ago I made some very disparaging remarks about the fruit of the Japanese medlar (or loquat) tree. But only a couple of days later our caretaker picked the fruit of the tree in the garden of our apartment block and gave me several kilos. And they were delicious. He must have picked them at just the right moment, as they were soft and sweet but not at all gungy. The rest of my family declined anyway, but (with some sturdy help from the hamster) I gorged for about a week. And then started to itch ... and scratch ... and swell up. And it turns out I'm allergic to the things.


As always with these things, it flared up really badly on Friday, just after the doctor's surgery had closed for the weekend. So I had a thoroughly miserable weekend. It's easing up now, but if you happen to be in Milan and come across a madwoman with ears like Dumbo violently scratching her scalp, you'll know who you're looking at. I'm sorry, tree, I'm sorry ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes! Sue, I hope you're feeling better soon. Allergies are not fun at all... I've never tried that fruit, but if I get the opportunity, maybe I'll just try a little bit, then wait and see.

Anonymous said...

Loquats are pretty rare here in the uk. I had one on my allotment and had no idea what it was. After some research i found out they can only fruit here in a greenhouse so i cut it down. No point in having a tree that doesn`t fruit.

LadyLuz said...

Oh Sue, what a shame you're allergic as I think it's a delicious fruit. They're called nispero in Spain and I've been trying to grow them from the abundant black seeds. No luck though so just pop to friend's house and pick her fruit.

Sue Swift said...

In fact, the problem turned out not to be the nespole at all - and in fact not an allergy. A pity, because at least it would have gone away if I stopped eating the things ...

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