Thankyou Rusty

I'm not a potato eater but I've made an exception today because these potatoes are special potatoes from out of my garden.

Not that I grew them you understand. I don't grow veges - only flowers. So how come I harvested these potatoes from my garden? Well, let me tell you . . . . . .

A few years ago - well, quite a lot really - I ventured out to my front gate to collect the mail or the paper or some such thing and there was Bryant, my elderly next door neighbour, propping up the gate post and chatting to another elderly chap. Bryant introduced us:

"This is Rusty. He lives down the road in the pensioner flats. He used to farm a bit, like I did."

"Hello Rusty. How lovely to meet you. What did you used to farm?"

"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that. Nothing very big, but I did love growing my own vegetables."

"Ah! A bit different to me then. I'm taking my vege patch out and putting flowers in instead. So beautiful to look at and smell."

"Hmmm - can't eat flowers y'know. I can't grow me any veges now down in the flats - no garden to play about in"

We continued to chat some more about nothing in particular then Rusty turned to head back up the road to his flat. It was about then that I noticed his wooden leg. Not a modern, moulded, prosthetic leg - a real captain-Ahab cup-at-the-top stump of a wooden leg.

I never did find out how he came to have it.

Anyway, Rusty's comments about 'not eating flowers' kept coming back to me and, as luck would have it, Rusty came back to see Bryant a few days later. I saw them out at the garden gate chatting again and took the opportunity to go out and see them. I'd had an idea and I wanted to make a suggestion to Rusty - he could use my soon-to-be-ex-vege-patch to grow some veges if he wanted. I invited him to drop in for a cup of tea later to talk about it which he did, and there began a wonderful year or so of shared veges, shared chats, and co-operative gardening.

Because I work full time I often didn't get to see Rusty for weeks on end, but I always knew when he'd been round - there were tell-tale holes in the garden and dents across the lawn from his peg leg! He planted and grew quite a few different veges and whenever he harvested anything he'd leave me a few on my doorstep. I'm sure he shared the rest with others in the pensioner flats too so it really was a great little arrangement.

Then one day a strange man came to my door.

"Is this where Rusty grew his veges?"

"Yes"

"I'm Rusty's son. He died last week and I've come to collect his gardening gear from your shed"

And a few days later it was all gone - all except his veges which continued to grow in the garden. I harvested and shared them that year.

And now, every few years, a potato pops up in my garden (which is now a flower bed) and I am reminded of Rusty telling me that "you can't eat flowers y'know" so I make a point of savouring their freshness and thanking Rusty for the legacy he left me and for his unspoken lessons in gratitude.