The Zela Street Gravel Party

• Throughout the course of reporting my travel adventures on this blog, I have occasionally mentioned “roadside saints”; people I met along the way who were there when I needed them to fix a leaky water hook-up, spot an about-to-blow tire, save the life of a stranger, return a lost wallet, or restrain a violent passenger on a bus.

• This posting is about “roadside saints” in my hometown.
  

• For the past several weeks as I have been whiling away the hours in Victoria, a top priority has been spending time with my friends Peter and Leslie. Peter is currently off work, courageously and with incredible fortitude, awaiting stem-cell treatment for recurrent lymphoma.

• Peter and Leslie have a wonderfully welcoming home, almost completely surrounded by the incredible and peaceful garden they have avidly created and nurtured over many years.
  

• In the office, Peter's post-weekend reports almost always included the number of barrowfuls of dirt, gravel, fertilizer, etc. he had wheeled from one part of the garden to another in accordance with Leslie's meticulous plan. A happy beneficiary of Peter's and Leslie's dedication to plants, flowers, bushes and trees, my visits to Zela Street always start with a garden tour of inspection

• Last weekend I had the pleasure of being the official photographer at the "Zela Street Gravel Party". It was an incredible delight to watch as four guys from the office - with big hearts and great legs - extended their helping hands to move a mountain of gravel from Peter's driveway to the side of his house.

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• These smiling, eager heroes showed up with shovels and wheelbarrows and made short- though sweaty - work of moving that pile of gravel before retiring to the porch for cold drinks and guy-chat.

• Although I haven’t missed being at work during the past 8+ months and – shocking as this may sound - am not looking forward to the end of my year off, I must say that the best part of work was, and always will be, the people. People like John and Rob and Stu and Dave (who doesn’t actually work with us – but that’s not the point) and Darlene – roadside saints in my hometown; people I am lucky to know and proud to count among my friends.