Happiness is walking in the sun beneath endless rows of trees. I wish I had an orchard. When I went further than the rest of the family in search of some low-hanging Matsu apples, I was alone and at peace with that happy feeling of life busy all around me. *happy sigh* It’s the same feeling I get, crouched amid the plants in the garden, only without the sore knees!

I do wonder, though, at people. The day would have been perfect but for the intrusion of people. People who are rude and shake ten apples from the trees to get one and pick a peck and leave the crate when they decide they no longer want them; people who are so busy snapping photos that they fail to notice much less enjoy what’s around them. (I do wonder at this: I love photos, too, for the memories they allow to be so easily preserved, but I also don’t want to miss what I’m experiencing, and these people who go about hunched over with a camera lens pressed to their eyeball and trained at the back of some kid’s head … how are they experiencing anything if they don’t even look up to note the look of the leaves against the sky?

(Oh well. Their loss.

The habit of punctuating multiple parenthetical paragraphs like one punctuates multiple quoted paragraphs I learned from Oscar Wilde. Thanks, Oscar!)

We went to dinner afterwards at O’Lordans, which was excellent as always. Then it was back to the house for dessert: fresh mint ice cream layered with chocolate cream and the apples we’d picked dipped in homemade caramel and peanut butter-caramel sauce. The latter, especially, was very popular. I even wrote down the recipe for Dad. Fancy the day that Dad would ask me for a recipe!

All in all–silly people aside–it was a good day.