I've just come back from blackberrying along the lane with our neighbours' son, aged 9.
While I dutifully picked - and anticipated pies and crumble with each berry that dropped into my bowl - my young helper soon lost interest.
He picked rose hips and elderberries which became missiles to lob at everything in sight. I cowered under a hail of small berries and innocent cows dozing in the sunshine were pelted with under-ripe hips. He described the possibility of stripping the leaves off a particularly vicious thorned briar and using it as a weapon. The very thought sent a shiver up my spine. He scrambled over gates, shouted at sheep and grubbed around in the hedge bottom occasionally emitting war-like yelps.
An excellent example of 'man the warrior' I think in contrast to my nurturing, berry gathering passivity.
PS He is really a very nice lad.
8 comments:
Mmm. No crumble for him then. Or only a little, perhaps. Strange, because according to the old saying.'One boy is one boy; two boys is half a boy and three boys is no boys at all,' he might have left his war like yells to another day.
More of a hunter than a gatherer then!!
I do like Twiglet's comment, but share Fennie's Mmmm.
Have you ever before been on such a walk with this young lad? Maybe he was showing off, not sure what he might have been showing off, but perhaps he doesn't often have time alone on a walk with an adult?
Give him another opportunity as the season changes. xo
Yup - that's a boy for you!
Boys will be boys. I have to admit mine would have been picking though cos he always loved to eat the produce once cooked [and he would have eaten a few on the way] :-)
A x
Ah yes, outings with boy.... takes me back. And reminds me how they always seemed to get so incredibly dirty!
my youngest came back from his wanderings tuther day with war paint made from squashed blackberries and riding the neighbours pony bare back and bare chested yup boys will be boys!!
I had to Google Fennie's proverb and like it. My boys are like chalk and cheese. There's NO WAY my oldest would even raise his voice to an animal - he loves them. By contrast, my youngest would jump on them and bite their necks.
Did your boys do things like this young'un you went berry picking with?
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