Picking Pears

Autumn approaches, there was just enough sun to be warm in a t shirt. I went outside in my flip flops and came across the familiar black wheelbarrow that lives in my parents garden. My dad use to wheel it around, lost in the vegetable garden.

I saw it full of runner beans that were finished and had been taken down. It is the end of a season. My son (4) proud of a job well done with Grannie was making his own entertainment by running soil through his hands and throwing it in the direction of family members.

My mother had mentioned to me that the pears needed picking. I suggested we could help her. I don't think she knew how to ask me outright. Just below my dad's bedroom window the pear tree grows against the wall, which, over the years, he has nurtured up the brickwork. The pears have a hard green skin I picked them and placed them in the fruit box to be packed away. My husband picked the ones we couldn't reach and pruned the branches that dad would normally have done. My daughter watched.

Later in the week I spoke to dad, he'd been pickling the pears ready for Christmas, reducing juniper berries as part of the recipe. It warmed my heart to think of him in his kitchen preparing food which he knows we will eat. My mum says the kitchen stank of cooked vinegar for days.