It being a Tuesday, ActorLaddie and I have collected from school my niece’s children, Chantenay and Nantes. We are now picking strawberries and raspberries for our tea: the garden’s been rather neglected this year but the berries just did their own thing and we’ve ended up with plenty. Which is cool and groovy as Pa joins us for a meal on Tuesdays and he’s a good eater.

In the kitchen, we wash and strain the berries, then virtuously put the water on the sweet peas.

“Now we need to hull the strawberries,” I say. “That means, take the green bits off the ends. Some people cut them off with knives and some use their thumbs and sort of dig them out.”

Chantenay quietly goes to the kitchen cupboard where we keep the drinks, roots around in the back and reappears with an old plastic straw. She pushes it into the pointy end of the strawberry and it appears out the top with the green stalk neatly strawed up.

“That’s brilliant!” I say. “How did you know how to do that?”

Chantenay shrugs nonchalantly. “I saw it on YouTube.”

So that’s me told.