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One weekend morning, I joined my mum to the local market for our weekly fruit and veg shop. Mum was still looking around when I offered to take the groceries back to the vehicle, which was stuffed into a little red trolley. It resembled a Mary Poppins bag – quite a small thing, but it was astonishing how much you could fit inside. That's what we believed.

With the trolley straining under the load of an already full load of groceries, my mum rested a box of honeydew melons on top. She cautioned me to be cautious taking it back to the car.

All was going well as I weaved my way through the crowds of shoppers and out of the market. But as I was navigating the chaotically busy main crossing into the market, the trolley got stuck on the traffic island in the middle of the road, and the crate of melons fell to the pavement. They scattered, spectacularly tumbling out towards passersby and waiting cars.

As the pedestrian signal switched from green to red, I was stunned, speechless, trying to process how I was going to collect the melons rolling in six different directions.

Suddenly, a band of several older women sprang to my assistance. White hair, head scarves and one with a cane – they looked like they had emerged 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 stop the vehicles, in both directions. They collected all the melons for me, retrieving a single one, as I fixed the box to contain them.

I expressed gratitude to them and they didn’t say a word, just grinned and waved me farewell. I didn’t eat the melons – I was not particularly fond of honeydew melon – but I share this anecdote frequently because I love it so much.

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