Life's Full of SURPRISES

An afternoon gardening - could anything be less thrilling?

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On Sunday afternoon, I arrived at Mum’s house dressed in an old T-shirt and  a pair of shorts, the perfect outfit for gardening.

She’d said her knees were bothering her, so I volunteered to get her flower beds planted.

Inside the open garage were dozens of trays, bursting with chrysanthemum, zinnia and geranium seedlings. Several bags of potting soil leant against the garage wall. On the nearby shelving unit, I located gardening gloves, but the trowel wasn’t in its usual spot.

I went into the house and found Mum in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher.

‘Your trowel is missing.’ ‘How about going round to

Alan’s to see if you can borrow his?’ she suggested.

Alan, the gentleman who moved into the house next door to Mum’s a few months ago, had recently stolen my mother’s heart. As a widower, he probably understood what she went through after losing my dad, but I just found him irritatingly long-winded.

I trudged next door and knocked, not looking forward to the session of small talk this favour would cost me.

So I was pleasantly surprised when a 30-something man with dark hair and gorgeous green eyes answered instead.

I smoothed back flyaway strands that had escaped my ponytail, wishing I’d spent more time on my appearance. ‘You’re not Alan.’