We went to Covert farm, a biodynamic farm we discovered two years ago, to pick fruits and veggies.

We picked perfectly ripped blackberries until our fingers were purple and ate sun-warmed strawberries, walking barefoot in the warm soft sand in between the rows. Too ripe tomatoes and peppers were all over the fields on the ground, like the forgotten toys of a toddler.

We left with organic corn cobs, strawberries, blackberries, incredibly sweet white grapes and nectarines, funky carrots and a bunch of veggies we picked ourselves (hot peppers and sweet peppers, yellow tomatoes, cucumbers) and they gave Mathilde the yellow watermelon she found in the field.

We arrived at Gladstone Provincial Park just before sunset, just in time for a soak in Christina Lake. I sat on a log, reading a book while Mara talked about an imaginary island in the middle of the Atlantic, devastated by a big storm, where a chief lived with a white raven whose feathers were magical. There was a golden tree, the only tree that survived the storm. The house of a tailor and a doctor, and many twists and turns. I stopped reading and listened attentively, thinking that there are probably not that many years left of made up stories in the sand with rocks and feathers… My sweet storyteller…

As I sat by the bonfire, watching Aïsha playing with her kendama and Mara with her poi, and listening to Mathilde playing the recorder, I drank all the goodness of a perfect day.