A Vision of the future: Laura's story

A Vision of the future: Laura's story

Laura lives on the Ladygrove estate and every morning she walks to Didcot Parkway to catch the train to Oxford where she works. But this was not going to be a normal morning. 

It is mid September and Laura is starting her daily commute to work. She is in a rush and as usual she has missed breakfast. Hurrying along one of the yellow brick paths she sees a sign that reads "Pick me, I'm free". The sign is just stuck in the ground next to a tree that is fully loaded with lovely looking apples. Still in a hurry Laura steps over to the tree and picks a perfect looking apple. As she continues on down the path, munching away, she notices another tree with a sign that reads "Plums: ready in 2 weeks". Taking a closer look at the tree as she passes, she notices that is covered in lots of unripe plums.  In fact, as she looks down the path all she can see are fruit trees, on each side, covered in fruit. Each one with its own sign advising when it will be ready to eat."How cool is this?" she thinks, "I'll never miss breakfast again at this rate!".

Walking on she see's an old man putting up a sign besides one of the trees. He looks up at her and says "I see that you found the Granny Smiths!". Laura blushed, "I'm sorry" she said "but the sign said they were free!". "Don't be sorry, they are free" said the old man. "Here, take one of these for your lunch, they perfect for eating right now" said the old man as presented her with a great big pear that he had just plucked from the tree beside him. "Oh thank you, I haven't had a pear in a long time" said Laura "I must shoot or I'll miss my train, I hope you have a great day" she said as she walked on. "And you!" called the old man as she marched on. 

A little further down the path, once she had just finished packing away her lunch, she saw a group of schoolkids ransacking one of the old mans apple trees. The kids had a big basket were quickly packing all the apples, they could lay their hands on, into it. "Oi, what are you lot doing!?" Shouted Laura "Stop stealing all the old mans apples!" "We're not stealing them" squeaked one of the kids "We're taking them to school, it's our turn to fetch lunch today! They're not his apples anyway, they're everyones!" said another. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realise" said Laura apologetically "you better hurry then, school starts soon!" "Oh no, we're late" shouted one of the kids "Lets go, these will have to do" said another and they quickly scampered off lugging the basket between them. Laura walked on. 

She had finished her Apple now and was looking around for somewhere to bin the core when she noticed just before the railway station there was a big brown bin that had the words "Green waste only" written on the side. And as she looked around she realised she wasn't the only one carrying an apple core, every other person had one. One by one they all rushed past the brown bin, dropping their cores and pips into the bin before reaching into their pockets to retrieve train tickets or mobile phones. Laura followed suit. "They've thought of everything" she thought as she lifted the lid on the bin "But who did all this?" As she closed the bin she saw the logo on the top, it read "Didcot Orchard Town: Food grown in the community by the community". "thats a nice idea, I wonder how I can help?" she thought as she walked up to the platform to board her train.

End