We were standing around not quite eating yet, I was listening to other family members and I didn’t even see him take one. I had quartered a heaping large serving bowl’s worth of Baby Crawford peaches right before time to leave so they would be as perfect as possible.

It was the motion that caught my eye: his face did this sudden downward-nod of someone caught by surprise as a soft “Oh wowwww!” came out of his mouth. He had not been expecting that.

I had also brought a smaller bowl of green gauge plums and none of them knew what they were. The guy’s daughter biting into one of those had the same reaction as her dad had had.

Are these from your trees? –Where was this place??

I think we have some new Andy’s Orchard enthusiasts.

When it was time to go, between the eleven adults and the baby everybody wanted to see and the three year old being adorable, we found ourselves lingering alongside the staircase without quite reaching the door. The toddler was in her daddy’s arms at that point, and I softly sang to her, So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen good night!

She stared at me in delight and an expression her daddy explained for me: astonishment.

Because every single night at home at their own house across the country, they sing that song to her. While going up their staircase one step at a time. ‘The sun has gone to bed and so must I.’ And with that they put her to bed.

And here was her great aunt whom she has no previous memory of meeting before tonight having no idea of any of this singing it to her in front of her grandparents’ staircase at bedtime.