Owning one makes you the horticultural equivalent of the man with tattoos and a pair of Rottweilers who

Owning one makes you the horticultural equivalent of the man with tattoos and a pair of Rottweilers who you people avoid in the park. So what’s our excuse? We were seduced.I wouldn’t quite say that we bought the house, six years ago, because of the mulberry tree, but it was certainly a part of the sell. And we had it surveyed by an arboriculturalist at about the same time the house was surveyed.”It’s a beauty,” he said. “A black mulberry, probably 100 years old, but then they fruit for a couple of hundred at least The black is excellent for fruit. The white has the leaves that the silk worms like.”He was right about the fruit. It is men like him who have preserved the forest’s traditions for so long, and given it the unique character that it retains today.. YOU TRY and tell them, but they don’t listen.

You warn them about wearing old shoes if they go out in the garden, and of not going under the tree, but they still come back peppered in vivid red splatters as if they have been strafed by a machine gun, and with a slick of red gore on their shoes as if they have been skidding through an abattoir. You can see why first-time visitors don’t heed your warnings It is, after all, only a mulberry tree. His sons have recently started a small business, and he reckons that if he too had done that, he might by now be well-off. As it is, living in a Forestry Commission house, he has never managed to accumulate the capital to buy property in the area: prices are astronomical, and he was chagrined the other day to see a small bungalow go for pounds 325,000.In short, Richard fears that he has wasted his time Others might disagree. For the future, he wishes some way could be found to exploit the European demand for horse meat: Belgium would buy all the cull-foals which the forest could supply, if only there were a local abattoir in which they could be slaughtered.Looking back from the grand old age of 47, Richard laments the fact that he has devoted so much time to animals.

Thus, when you ask how many ponies he owns, he just gives a merry laugh, and goes on to enthuse about the excitement of the drifts, or mounted round-ups, which take place at this time of year.”You hold the drift, and you catch a lot of ponies, but the artful ones are very wild, and know how to get away. If some escape for two or three years, and then we do capture them, it’s a big thing – all part of the mystery of the forest.”This autumn, he has hardened his heart and culled some mares that were old or “not thrifty”, but on the whole he finds it “difficult to get rid of the ponies we’ve always had, because they’re in our blood”. There is also an adventure playground with mini tractors to drive, plus a children’s entertainer.Book It!Children’s Book Fair, Cheltenham Town Hall and various locations (01242 227979) 10am-6.30pm, events from pounds 3, booking necessaryThis book bonanza – which runs over next weekend as well – will feature more than 60 events, ranging from talks by authors such as Quentin Blake to workshops and children’s parties. Richard agrees, yet his own practicality is tempered by an emotional attachment to the way of life that his family has known for so long. This weekend there will be poetry readings and children will be encouraged to create their own rhymes.. Austin Car Rally

Kent and Sussex Railway, Tenterden (01580 765155) today and tomorrow, pounds 6.50 (pounds 3.25)
If your kids are transport buffs, they’re in for a double treat this weekend when not only can they take a seven-mile journey on a steam train, but they can also check out dozens of Austin cars from the 1940s and 1950s.Apple and Cider FestivalMuseum of Kent Life, Cobtree, nr Maidstone (01622 763936) today 11am- 6pm and tomorrow 11am-5pm, pounds 3.95 (pounds 2.45)Apple-bobbing and apple juice-making are some of the activities on offer when this country-life museum celebrates all things apple this weekend.

“It looks beautiful,” says a spokeswoman, “but the next day we do tend to wonder whether we will ever get rid of the smell.”
Borough Market Family Days, Borough Market, 8 Southwark St, London SE1 (0171-403 7400) today 12pm-6pm and tomorrow 12pm-5pm, freeLondon’s oldest fruit and veg market (left) hosts a children’s circus, disco, funfair and numerous music and art workshops.Poetry Workshop, Borders, 203 Oxford St, London W1 (0171-292 1600)Every Saturday this huge book, music and video store holds free kid’s workshops on the second floor. To 0 Jan5Peter Doig & Udomsak Krisanamis Arnolfini Gallery, BristolDoig’s sizzling, curdling, overloaded landscapes alternate with Krisanamis’s twinkling surfaces and noodle collages To 8 Oct. Fish Harvest Festival, St Mary-at-Hill Church, Lovat Lane, London EC3 (0171-626 4184) tomorrow 11am, free

St Mary-at-Hill is the parish church for Billingsgate fish market and for this event they decorate the church with every conceivable kind of fish. To Nov4When Time Began to Rant and Rage Walker Art Gallery, LiverpoolCharting Irish figurative tradition of the last 00 years through 70 pictures, taking in Irish Impressionism and Jack B Yeats’ wild fantasias. To 5 Nov3Chris Ofili Serpentine GalleryThe Turner Prize favourite, this painter is an upbeat original, his surfaces dense and decorative, with swirls of dots, eyes, Afros and black icons, and incorporating mutant balls of elephant dung.

To 0 Jan2Pieter de Hooch Dulwich Picture GalleryThe domestic chronicler of 7th-century Delft De Hooch’s interiors welcome the stranger in. He delights in detail and perspectival challenges, picturing houses like magic boxes. National Theatre, London SE1 (0171-452 3000) Mon-Wed, 6pm. 1

Aubrey Beardsley Victoria & Albert Museum
Displaying the short, glittering life – he died in 898 at 25 – of the aesthete and illustrator, with his sinuous and florid line Drawings, prints and posters. On Monday and Tuesday, there are readings of excerpts from his earliest plays – Fred and Madge and The Visitors and a novel, Between Us Girls, all of which have only just been published for the first time. Wednesday’s performance also offers the chance to see Leonie (memorably played by Frances Barber in the film) in interview. Stephen Frears’s film Prick Up Your Ears – scripted by the great Alan Bennett – introduced moviegoers to the great theatrical talent of Joe Orton (below).