1. I give Alec a couple of wild strawberries, and the next thing I know, he's squatting down among the plants picking his own berries and stuffing them into his mouth. He offers the odd one to me, but always eats it himself before I have a chance to take it.
2. Breaking open a broad bean pod -- just picked -- to show Alec the beans that no-one else has seen pressed into the white foam lining. He tastes one, but doesn't think much of it. My mother peels and squeezes a a pair of emerald green bean halves out of the bitter jacket and suddenly he can't get enough.
3. My mother shows Alec the chickens on her new table mats. "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" she says by way of explanation -- because he can often manage an animal's sound when he can't get the word out.
He responds with a snatch of a tune I sing for him: "Cock-a-doodle-doo, my dame has lost her shoe. My master's lost his fiddling stick, sing cock-a-doodle-doo."
"We've got song for every occasion," I say.
"Like Granny has."
I remember Granny singing that song for me -- as well as several others that Alec and I enjoy together.
