The snow was unexpected. I was rushing to an appointment. He’d offered me a lift. No, no, I’d said. I want to walk. I watched the snow turn to rain from my studio window and braced myself. The walkway from our hallway out to the steps into the car park was slushy and slippy. And the small flight of steps even worse. I heard him first. He was using some sort of mechanical strimmer on a bush on the edge of the car park. We know him. We’ve seen him loads of time and we nod, though we don’t know his name. He is a slow, lumbering sort of chap, not old. An employee of the super-fit, brown-skinned, ever-friendly, quasi-Australian (he’s really from Cardiff) director of the landscape gardening company that our agents contract the keeping of the estate to, he doesn’t emulate his boss’s saviour-faire. He saw me struggling with the steps while balancing my stick and umbrella and came over. Offering me his arm, and then taking my hand he walked me down the hill. I was so touched while at the same time thinking he must think of me as an old woman. A gentle being, clearly. The kindness of strangers…..
