1. The Mother brings strawberry plants with magenta flowers, and a neat-waisted terracotta pot to grow them in. "There's compost, too, but Daddy says he bought you some last week..."
"I've got my own, too," I tell her, and show her the bag brewing in the yard. "But it's so hard to get hold of, and I'm always running out. Let's put it in the cellar and then it's there for when I need it."
2. To drop a heavy sack into the cool bricky dark of the cellar.
3. "A couple of weeks ago when you weren't here," I tell Tim, "We were walking past this Chinese takeaway and there was an elderly man in there sitting with one of the staff. They had a stamp album open on the table, doing their swaps."
"I was there," protests Tim, "And I noticed it, too."
