A lemon adventure

Last night we had a fun little adventure in the evening. I had purposed to bake a lemon syrup cake in preparation for a meeting tonight. I had organised for some lemons to be passed to Dave by a friend at his work so that I could use them to make said cake.

When I got home at about 5:30 pm and asked Dave if he had the lemons, he told me he had forgotten them. Oh, oh. I wondered about what to do: go to the shops? make a different cake? use the crappy oranges we already had instead? I didn't want to buy lemons because they never taste as good and I don't like spending money unnecessarily. I didn't want to make a different cake because I was fairly sure the lemon syrup cake was requested and I didn't want to use the oranges because they weren't fresh enough and the last time I ate one it was dissapointingly dry and unsweet.

So I decided to go on a lemon hunt. I know of four lemon trees within about 1 or 2 kilometres of our place so we all piled into the car around 6 pm and set off to find some lemons. The first tree had plenty but we couldn't get them easily so we moved on. The second tree turned out to be mandarins. The third tree was always questionable as it is within a yard enclosed by high brick and iron fences. We couldn't reach them easily either. We didn't go to the fourth tree although that would have been a bit dodgy too as it is in someone's front yard. There's no fence but it's probably not right to help yourself.

After the brick fence tree we went back to the one closest to our house (just the next street over) and had a closer look. I could have pulled a couple off and possibly would have, had the lights not been on inside the house. Instead I put my brave pants on and knocked on the door. I knew an older couple lived there because I have seen them pottering about over the years. An old man answered the door and I pretty much said "I see you have a lemon tree, may I have a couple?". He kindly obliged and told me they had been picked that day, the lemon tree was over 20 years old and another tree on their property that was 26 years old didn't make it through the recent storms and had fallen over. I thanked him and hopped back into the car.

I baked my cake and it is sitting on the bench waiting for tonight. I think it looks delicious, but we shall see. Hopefully it was worth the effort to obtain the precious lemons.