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When we moved into our new home in The Smallest Village, at the end of November, we bought a set of Christmas cards and put our name and address on it. We distributed those around the neighbourhood so that people would know our names. A lot of people returned the favour, which certainly felt like a good welcome. The couple at the end of the street also used the card to invite us for a coffee and included their mobile number so we could message them.

So some time in January, when the worst dust of the move had settled, we went there on a Saturday evening for a coffee. I had baked chocolate chip cookies (using Dorrie Greenspan’s recipe, with added cinnamon). We had a lovely evening, it was around midnight when we returned home! And the cookies were well received — though half of the household turned out to be gluten intolerant, but the other half did not have any trouble covering for them in the cookie eating department!

He walks by every so often, we wave and maybe make some small talk. But on Saturday afternoon he was at the backdoor with two kinds of cherries, from his own trees!

Such a lovely gesture! And we had not planned on eating any cherries this year because commercially grown cherries are allowed to be sprayed with a pesticide that has not been fully tested for safety… But these are untreated and fresh off the tree.

We would have visitors that evening so I had baked cookies again, and gave some of them in return.

He had advised us to use the cherries for a “cherry pancake”: bake some cherries, and then pour in pancake batter. An intriguing thought.

Sunday, late in the evening, there was a knock on the back door again. It was our neighbour again, with a cherry pancake, still warm, with powdered sugar already on top! We had it as a late night snack, it was really good.

When he brought the cherries, he said: “If there’s a spot on it, just press on it. If there’s moisture coming out, there’s probably a worm inside…”

I prefer my cherries vegan, so we invested a bit of time in cutting each of them open and inspecting for worms. Most of them were fine…