I live in the country. I know when I’ve written about that before some people have been up in arms that it actually ISN’T the country. I don’t know what the definition of country is, but I think if I can hear cows mooing as I type this… then that’s pretty much country.
But perhaps I’m wrong. Are city cows a thing?
On Sunday I was driving down a country road, down a hill {no gutters, street lights, only bush and rocks} when I saw an old lady walking up the hill. Now this hill has no paths and I wouldn’t even contemplate walking it, because SNAKES, SPIDERS, cars and a very steep hill. Yet, there she was practically dodging cars. She was well dressed though, in a pretty dress, a handbag and a made-up face.
So I turned around and headed back up the hill, and stopped in the middle of the road, “That doesn’t look safe. Let me drive you to the top of the hill.”
She didn’t bat an eyelid. She jumped in the car. When I say jump, I mean gingerly, slowly opened the door and sat in the passenger seat.
That stuff doesn’t happen in the city friends, I’m sure of it.
She told me that she was here from the UK, had just been to church and would appreciate if I could drop her to her daughter’s house.
“Of course,” I replied, “What’s her address?”
Then came the problem. She didn’t know where her daughter lived, but she did know that the house had a lounge out the front.
A lounge out the front might sound like quite a distinguishing feature, and easy way to identify the house of her daughter… but alas it’s council clean-up time and every second house has a lounge out the front. So I drove around and around and around and around and around and around… and you get the picture… pausing momentarily at each curbside lounge.
That sweet old lady was sweet, but I feared that I might have to move her in with me because I couldn’t find the right house. There was a moment when I contemplated dropping her off at any house with a lounge and telling her, “I think this will do.” But I didn’t, because I have a soul, and it’s Christmas and Santa is watching.
Eventually, thirty-three hours later {or 33 minutes, I was so fatigued I lost count} we found the right house, with the right old lounge and we bid farewell.
And that is a story of a random act of kindness that was more random that I could have imagined.
Ever picked up a stranger?
photo credit: Spyros Papaspyropoulos
That was so sweet of you to help her back to her daughters place, too many people would have drove by thinking about helping her but never turning their car around.
Sarah 🙂
Saloca in Wonderland
Lots of people definitely did. I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to her, and it’s such a dangerous stretch of road… anywho. She went home safe. Yay.
That is super sweet of you. And I do think you live in the country if you can hear cows. I live in a little city surrounded by “country” which consists mostly of Amish farms and cows are everywhere.
I have never picked up a stranger, honestly I’m sort of scared to. I think I would if my husband was in the card and our son wasn’t but that’s a rare occasion…
I didn’t really think of her hurting me, but she probably could have! Eeek.
I have to say, the thought of living near Amish farms intrigues me! What’s it like?
Ah see, I’m an inner city Melbourne girl and a similar thing HAS happened to me. A little older lady asked me for directions as I was getting into my car, and when I looked the address up it was a good ten minutes drive away. She’d been planning to walk, but it was a hot day and she looked pretty frail, so I offered to drive her. She just jumped in the car, no hesitation, and I drove her to her friends house, obviously, and delivered her to the front door, but I always felt like I should have warned her about just getting into a car with a stranger, LOL
Ha, I felt like I should give that lady a talking to about walking on that road… but I thought I’d let her go. Next time I might ‘ground’ her. Ha.
Country people do look after anyone in need. Having grown up with the cows mooing (dairy farms are like that!) I can say I have picked up my fair share of strangers on the road and delivered them to their destination; fixed flat tyres; recharged batteries and pulled cars out of ditches (tractors are handy for this).On the downside of country living is the fact it was impossible to go for a run without a neighbor slowing their car as the approached to find out if if everything was OK. Well at least they asked….
That is so funny. What do you say? I’m just running! Leave me be please!
Poor old love! Good on you for helping her. It’s not nice to think that we might all end up in that situation one day and I’d like to think there’s lots of good people in the world who would do the same thing you did! Lotsa good karma coming atcha!
I hope people do it for us when we’re frail. Fingers crossed.
Bless your little cottons, you are the best! You know what goes around come around, don’t you?! So there’s going to be some good things coming at ya! I remember when I was young (in the olden days) we used to do that all the time, give someone at the bus stop a ride to the shops or pick up someone who was walking home in the rain. It hardly ever happens now. I guess everyone just got too busy and the world got a bit scary. Just for the record,I’m such a city girl, I think anything with cows, space and without shops or bad traffic is the country!
I think I’m a City girl too, that’s why anything with lots of grass, cows, trees is definitely considered country to me!
Heck we don’t have dumplings! It’s SOOOOOO the country. 😛
Good on you! I’ve picked up an old lady when it was bucketing rain, it must be tough to stay independent as you get older and can’t drive.
Definitely. That’s not something I look forward to. 🙁
How random! I think it’s safe to say you live in the country 😉 Since when is it such a competition anyway?! Had to laugh at your “santa is watching” line! x
You are such a lovely person, this was such a nice thing to do! You’ll be on Santa’s nice list for sure!! I’m always wary of picking people up which is a sad reflection of the times we live in I think. P.S. If you can hear cows, you’re in the country I say!
Oh I swear that could have been my grandmother to a tee! Its always a bit that way where you want to help and you feel good for helping but its also a tiny bit frustrating. Oh and that is most definitely country! I tell people I grew up in the country because even though I was only 20 minutes from a quite decent city, all my neighbours were farmers or hippy nature lovers, and thats what I think of when I think of country.
Ha, maybe it was. 😛
If you can smell cow poo in the air, you live in the country…..that’s what I tell all my friends anyways! When we moved into our country town I got totally lost looking for the school. I had decided to walk on my girls first day there, seemed like a pretty simple task. Not so. I had to knock on a random door to ask for directions, thankfully it was a lovely old couple who insisted on driving us.
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I pick up hitch-hikers. Only due to the fact that where I live, I know where they are going and there’s no public transport at all, ’cause it’s the country!
You’re a good egg!
Yep once picked up an elderly lady who’d run out of petrol and took her to the servo. Had my toddler and baby in the back and innocently said that they must be thinking ‘what the hell is mum doing?’ Then she told me that she was a nun!
We broke down on the side of a busy country road once and tried to flag down help (this was before we had mobile phones). Nobody stopped for us. Luckily, we had Grandma in the back seat, so we made her get out and wave at the cars and sure enough one pulled up straight away. Good ol’ Granny saved the day.