Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Towards the end of the festival, Daschel is looking for someone to play with. A teenager teaches him to play hackysack for a little while. Rudi takes him for a piggyback ride and lets him wear his sunglasses and hat. A woman further up the hill plays catch with him. Finally some children his own age arrive and he’s able to join in their games.

2. En route to the festival, we spend the night just north of NYC. We take the train into the city to have dinner with erik and then sit in a twilight-filled Union Square watching people and dogs go by. The next afternoon, we stop at Eri’s. She rustles up an old bike for me to borrow and we pedal leisurely into town for lunch at a cafe.

3. Mum calls mid-afternoon on Sunday to check if we’ll want supper when we arrive there after the festival ends. Rudi, having ridden 100 miles earlier in the day, enthusiastically endorses the idea. I expect that she’ll just have leftovers for us to reheat when we arrive, but the whole family has waited for us to dine amidst the candles outside. In addition to Mum making my favorite potatoes, Gramma has baked a blueberry-peach pie.