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One Saturday morning, I accompanied my mum to the local market for our weekly produce shopping. Mum was still looking around when I volunteered to bring the groceries back to the car, which was stuffed into a little red trolley. It resembled a Mary Poppins bag – rather compact, but it was surprising how much you could load it up. That's what we believed.

With the cart straining under the weight of an already full load of groceries, my mum rested a carton of sweet melons on top. She warned me to be careful taking it back to the car.

All was going well as I weaved my way through the throngs of shoppers and out of the market. But as I was crossing the hectic main intersection into the market, the trolley became lodged on the traffic island in the middle of the road, and the crate of melons tumbled to the pavement. They went flying, dramatically rolling out towards pedestrians and waiting cars.

As the little walking man changed from green to stop, I was stunned, speechless, trying to process how I was going to retrieve the melons shooting in six different directions.

Suddenly, a group of several elderly ladies came to my assistance. Silver-haired, head scarves and one with a walking stick – they looked like they had emerged of the same babushka doll. They didn't hesitate by the cars inching their way towards us. Utterly fearless, they just raised their hands to halt the traffic, in each direction. They gathered all the melons for me, retrieving a single one, as I fixed the box to contain them.

I thanked them and they didn’t say a word, just grinned and waved me farewell. I never consumed the melons – I was not particularly fond of honeydew – but I tell this story all the time because I love it so much.

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