If the rains of August have left you pale, they have done wonders for the pigment in apple skin. This year our apple crop is due to be larger and redder than usual. A thorough soaking of rain is great for apples in many ways. While the wet can rot other crops, especially straw as it lies in fields, it not only boosts the size and colour of apples, it also acts as a kind of teenage face wash, preventing blemishes. If you have just spent the past few weeks closeted indoors, especially frustrated by the effort to entertain children, big red apples may not console you. Right now I would rather live in a climate better suited to producing bananas and mangoes, and yet the season for English apples still puts many of us in a better light because we are, simply, good at buying them.Throughout the