Mrs. Brown lives in a city. She likes growing all kinds of vegetables very much. There is a small garden behind her house. And in spring she usually plants some vegetables in it. Every day, she waters them and looks after them very carefully. When summer comes, they look very nice.

One evening Mrs. Brown looked at her nice vegetables and said with a smile, “Tomorrow I am going to pick them. Then I will have some delicious vegetables.” After that she went into her house happily.

But early in the next morning, her son ran in and shouted, “Mother! Mother! Come quickly! Our neighbour’s duck is in the garden and he is eating our vegetables.”

Mrs. Brown ran out quickly, but it was too late. All the vegetables were gone. Mrs. Brown sat on the ground and cried, and her neighbour was very sorry, but that was the end of the vegetables.

One day before Christmas, the neighbour brought Mrs. Brown a nice and fat duck, and on the duck’s back was a piece of paper with the words: Enjoy your vegetables!

I have a neighbor we call “Happy”. I never see her angry at anything and never hear her say a harsh word to anyone.

Happy and her husband Ben, 70, have a huge garden. They spend many happy hours together working on it. Most of the neighbors watch interestingly as Happy and Ben double the size of their garden. As the cost of food climbs faster than Ben’s beans, we all wish we also had such a large garden. As the rest of us spend our money at the market, Happy picks beans in her garden.

One day Happy and Ben invite most of the neighborhood over for an “all-day food festival”. We are told to bring gloves and arrive very early in the morning. We don’t know what is about to take place.

By 9:00 a.m., there are nine of us in the garden picking tomatoes, beans and squash. By 10:00 a.m., there is lots of laughter. We share a lot of funny stories. By five o’clock p.m., everyone is a little drunk from the wine and beer. After dinner, we play games. As we are leaving, Happy and Ben give each of us a shopping bag full of the bounty of the day. What a delightful gift!

Well, the point isn’t so much about the food. The true gift is a day of friends enjoying one another’s company.

Today I went on a trip to a beach with some of my friends. We got up early. After breakfast, we went there at seven thirty in the morning by bus. An hour later, we arrived at the beach. We ran without shoes, sang and laughed on the beach. We were all wet. But we were very happy. After lunch, we walked along the beach to the waterfall. We saw the beautiful scene and took many photos. At four thirty in the afternoon, we took a bus and came back to school.

What a happy day we had!