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One Saturday morning, I accompanied my mum to the local market for our regular fruit and veg shopping. Mum was still looking around when I offered to take the groceries back to the vehicle, which was packed into a small rolling cart. It was like a magical bag – quite a small thing, but it was surprising how much you could fit inside. Or so we thought.

With the trolley heaving under the weight of an packed load of groceries, my mum rested a box of sweet melons on top. She cautioned me to be careful getting it back to the car.

All was going well as I made my way through the crowds of shoppers and out of the market. But as I was navigating the hectic main crossing into the market, the trolley became lodged on the road divider in the middle of the road, and the box of melons fell to the pavement. They scattered, spectacularly tumbling out towards passersby and waiting cars.

As the pedestrian signal switched from go to red, I was shocked, speechless, trying to figure out how I was going to collect the melons rolling in multiple directions.

Suddenly, a band of several older women sprang to my rescue. Silver-haired, scarves and one with a cane – they appeared as if they had stepped out of the same nesting doll. They weren’t deterred by the cars inching their way towards us. Utterly fearless, they just held up their hands to halt the traffic, in each direction. They gathered all the melons for me, retrieving a solitary melon, as I repaired the box to hold them.

I thanked them and they didn’t say a word, just smiled and gestured me goodbye. I didn’t eat the melons – I was never a real fan of honeydew melon – but I tell this story all the time because I love it so much.

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