Grow your own peppercorns

THERE are a few things that will indicate when I succumb too fully to middle age: not kicking a windfall apple that happens to have fallen in my path, not having to have chocolate and ice cream when I go to the cinema—and not bending down, as I walk past the pepper plants that grow in my garden, to rub their leaves. For eight months of the year, their spice scent perfumes my fingertips—and long may it continue.