The rose

Walking along a country lane the other day I found a single long-stemmed red rose, in a fancy wrapping with gold and silver foil tassels on it. Before my dog could wee all over it I bent down and rescued it from the dandelion smothered roadside verge.
After walking the dog further down the lane I turned round and took him home where I put the rose into a vase. I thought about the story the rose could have told. Perhaps it had been lost before the man could give it to his love or maybe she didn’t turn up and he threw it away in disgust. Or perhaps she had not liked it and threw it away. She might have had a secret meeting with the giver of the rose and then had to jettison it after she left him but I knew that it would have to remain a secret.
Imagine my surprise when the following day I found another red rose, much the same as the other one! Now I had two beautiful roses both keeping their secrets from me.

Today I left the house slightly earlier than usual. Normally I would have left after a certain radio programme had ended. The dog recognises the theme music that ends the programme and he fetches his lead so that I can walk him. But today I left early; it was sunny but a bank of ugly grey clouds threatened heavy rain in the near future.
So off we went, down out of town into the country. We passed a field of young cattle, their large eyes staring at us as we halted near them so that the dog could watch them.
Then moving away from the juvenile herd I stopped to look at a wonderful display of primroses, not peeping shyly but studding the bank with splashes of yellow. As we stopped near the flowers we disturbed a small brown animal that dashed back into the dry leaves at the bottom of the hedge and the dog tried to find it by sniffing all over the bank side but the flowers made him sneeze.
We continued our walk and when we were on the return leg of our journey I saw a jackdaw attack another large bird, which was threatening its nest. Then I looked down. Almost at my feet was another rose and walking rapidly away from me was a middle-aged man. I recognized him as someone who lived in one of the few houses on the lane.
After much effort I caught up with him.
“Excuse me, is this your rose?” I asked, somewhat breathlessly.
He nodded and thankfully stopped walking. He smiled at me and said,
“I see you walking your dog down here and you look so sad. Your eyes look as if you’ve suffered so much and I wanted to take away that look of worry and hurt. I thought that you would like the roses.”
“I do, I love them thank you. But why do it this way?”
“I’m married, and you’re married. I’ve seen your husband with the dog. I just wanted to bring a little bit of joy into your life.”
Then he walked away from me and went into his house.

I was very touched that this man, who had never spoken to me before, should do this singular act of kindness and I wanted to share it.