It’s hard not to get FOMO at Cambridge. There are simply too many places you’re supposed to be at once – at the library, at the club, at that society you said you’d join, in bed, at the bar, at your friend’s play (how are they always in a play? When do they work?), etc, etc, etc. It’s impossible to do it all, and yet you’re still trying. But I regret to inform you that you’ve probably already missed the social event of the season – Apple Day.

Every year, the Botanical Garden hosts the region’s biggest Apple Day celebration, where you can sample and then buy over 20 variants of apple. You can also buy (overpriced) artisan food items and quirky (also overpriced) crafts that your eccentric aunt would like.

Would I describe myself as an apple fanatic? No. They rank pretty low on my list of fruits, and I only really like them when they are cut up (like a small child, I know), which is more faff than they are normally worth. Yet that didn’t dampen my excitement in the lead-up to the day. I bought a Fiona Apple t-shirt off Vinted for the occasion and attempted some ‘apple-inspired’ eye makeup. I chant “are you excited for Apple Day?” over and over and over again to my friends (they say yes).

“Create Doorknob Day, and I’ll get excited about that too”

It’s a very twee event. And apparently twee is back, which is good news for me and my coloured tights. But you can’t just wear the clothes and listen to the Juno soundtrack, you’ve got to lean into the quaint, the wholesome, and the family-friendly day out – Apple Day. It’s like a village fête, something I was tragically deprived of as a Londoner. And it’s themed, which I love (I’ll accept any excuse for a day to be special). Create Doorknob Day, and I’ll get excited about that too.

Yet upon arriving at the Botanical Garden, a serious issue became clear. While we seemed to be the only Cambridge students enthusiastic enough about apples to be there, every single middle-class family within a 20-mile radius had caught on that Apple Day was the place to be. The queue for the sampling tent (the main attraction) stretched along the entire garden. While some of my friends decided to shrug off their ‘polite Britishness’ and push in, I was peer-pressured into walking all the way to the back of the queue, where we waited in line for an hour and a half.

“Most of them just tasted like an apple to me”

You might think that it was a waste of time to queue for this long to sample a fruit I’m not that into. And obviously you’d be right. But I’m trying to escape the incessant need for time efficiency. I can’t exist in a constant Pomodoro cycle where I have to keep locking in and only peeking my head out for five minutes to have the most efficient fun possible. Even during the holidays, I find myself checking the clock and wondering if I’ve been productive enough with my relaxation over the last hour. Therefore it doesn’t matter that Apple Day festivities took longer than I expected; the best experiences involve time wasting. And it wasn’t much of a hardship queuing in the botanical garden. “This is so Gilmore Girls,” I think to myself as I try to soak up the crisp autumn day. You get to watch little kids run around with DIY apple bird feeders which look like mini medieval weapons. You can eat an overpriced artisan sausage roll. You can complain about your other friends who pushed in. And you can read lines from the ‘Apple Day’ poem by Debbie Whitton Spriggs – my favourite bit being ”Bring your best and bring your least; Bring your unfamiliar beast”. What on earth does this mean, Debbie?

Finally, we entered the sampling tent where I attempted to review all of the apples. This is when I realised I had a fairly unsophisticated palate, because most of them just tasted like an apple to me (even the ones that claimed to taste like pineapple, they didn’t). I ended up seriously overusing the words ‘crunchy’, ‘sharp’, and ‘okay’. But then some apples were genuinely horrendous; they jolted me into an opinion, like Laxton’s Superb, which was not superb at all but rather soft and tasteless. Avoid. My favourite were the William Crump apples – mostly because of the delightful name.

So Apple Day was an absolute blast, and you are probably jealous you weren’t there. But no fear, Apple Day is not the only event you can attend this academic year. The next big thing is Eel Day at Ely (a quick half an hour away from Cambridge) in Easter Term. There’s an eel parade and a lot of Morrissey dancing. Do I like eels? No. But that’s beside the point. I’ll be there, and I hope you will too.