GOING BLACKBERRYING

It was decided, it being a sunny afternoon, that I would take my little grandson blackberrying.  He even turned off, by himself, the television where the umpteenth episode of Shaun the Sheep that he had watched so far that day had been playing  a moment before.  He loves his Shaun the Sheep does our little Theo.
    Tupperware bowls in hand - a small one for him, a larger one for me - we set out hand in hand towards the lane where the blackberries grow, with Theo pausing here and there to pick some shrivelled offering growing by the roadside and putting it in his mouth. I explained about petrol fumes but I don’t think he was bothered.
    Eventually we came to where the fruit grew more plentifully.  I had taken the precaution of bringing with me some secateurs the better to approach some of the wilder hedges and started to snip, clearing a way for Theo. This was a mistake.  Here was a far better pastime than blackberrying. He demanded the secateurs and began to snip. I had lost one blackberry picker and in return - I turned round to watch his progress - I had gained a snipper of leaves, a little pile of which lay on the ground.  He was not one wit interested in cutting out the bramble shoots that had grown so vigorously across the path.  He just wanted to cut a happy little nest of leaves.  Luckily at that point I found a lovely little crop of fruit at the right height for him to pick. I relieved him of the secateurs and gave him back his bowl.
    But then came a howl - a howl of fright more than anything. I thought he’d found a dead body,  a half-eaten rabbit perhaps, he came rushing back to me gasping for breath.  He struggled to get the words out - “there, there!” he panted, pointing.
    “Where, what?”  I started to go over to where he was pointing.
    “No!” he shrieked.
    “There’s nothing here.”  And there wasn’t.  Not anyway anything that I could see.
    “Spider’s web!” he intoned in terms of dread.
    Now that I looked more closely I could see if I bent down to his height that the sunlight caught a corner of a cobweb.  Theo has a relaxed relationship with arachnids, but for some reason their webs terrify him beyond all reason.
    “It’s nothing,” I said, and avoiding the web as best I could, picked the blackberries.  Theo watched in anxiety as if expecting me at any moment to be turned into a pillar of salt. 
    I went further into the lane hoping that there might be fewer autumnal spiders’ webs but Theo was loathe to follow. I think he thought the vegetation which towered around us might suddenly come alive and imprison us.  Both literally and metaphorically another blackberrying avenue became closed off.
    Reluctantly I retraced my steps, but then found a bush which I could guarantee free both of overhanging vegetation and spiders’ webs.  At last Theo might add to the three meagre specimens in the bottom of his Tupperware.
    He began reaching hesitantly for the fruit, but then dropped the bowl and clasped his hands over his ears.  He came running back to me.
    “Bees, bees!” he shouted and he did a little jig on the spot still with his hands over his ears as though convinced that if you couldn’t actually hear a bee then it wouldn’t sting you.  The poor lad has never been bitten by a bee though  in recent weeks  he has unfortunately been stung by a wasp. Naturally, when I looked I failed to see any bees. 
    Another wail - this time Theo had been stung by a nettle.
    At this rate we were not likely to return home with much of a harvest. So then I hit on a plan.  Theo could give me his bowl and stay six feet away from the brambles and the nettles but from where he could still see to point out the blackberries to me, especially the low lying ones which he could see from his height and I couldn’t see from mine.  This plan worked most excellently.
    “There!” he would say, “there, underneath.  Look!”
    We had the bowls filled in no time and then we went home and baked a crumble with Theo mixing together the flour and the sugar and the butter, picking the mixture up and letting it slip through his fingers.  He even cleaned up the mess on the table afterwards.