A colleague at the Little Shop of Harmony who obviously feels I eat way too many biscuits at coffee break gave me a bag full of apples from her own apple trees.I eyed them suspiciously because I buy my apples (and biscuits) at the supermarket. Supermarket apples are always perfectly round, even-coloured, flawless and come in little plastic bags looking almost clinically sterile. Actually, they look a bit like the biscuits except for the chocolate topping but don't taste as good. These apples were bruised, slightly overripe and with worrying little holes in them. When I opened the bag, a little fly flew out in a hurry.
Then I forgot everything else, even my horror of worms (not easily forgotten). Oh the fragrance! A smell not of supermarket plastic but of apples! Of autumn, dewy grass, woodsmoke, soil, berries, childhood, happiness, life.
They even taste good. I haven't found a worm yet.