Dear Readers, sometimes it’s the little things that really make an impression, as with this incident. Writing a daily blog really helps me to notice things like this.

Dear Readers, why, you might ask, is the blog featuring a rather unassuming-looking sandwich bar today? Well, I am in Dorchester, and it’s always hard – Dorset has so many memories of when Mum and Dad were alive. When I travel through Moreton station, I can almost see the pair of them standing on the platform waiting for my train to arrive, Dad would be in his zip-up jacket, Mum in some combination of bright fuchsia and turquoise and both of  them would be wearing  those photochromatic spectacles that go dark at the first sign of sunshine. They always reminded me of a pair of mature and successful bank robbers taking a break from Marbella. And now, no one waits for me at the station, and yet I always find myself looking for them, or for some trace of them.

So, by the time I get to the next station along, Dorchester South, I am often a little downhearted. And then there’s the walk past the care home where Mum and Dad spent their last months. I always pause to look up at the window on the third floor which was Dad’s room, as if I expect him to be watching for me, or at least for my bright red coat. Towards the end, I think he recognised the coat more than he did me, but I take comfort that he always knew that I was someone who was special to him for some reason, and someone who cared about him.

Today, I jumped on the train before I had a chance to buy any lunch, and all this remembering had made me hungry, so I stopped at the Pic-Nick sandwich bar. It’s tiny, really just a counter and a space to wait, but the man working there made me a massive ham and mustard roll (for some reason my vegetarianism goes right out of the window here). And then, he asked me if I wanted any salad.

“No thank you”, I said. I always feel as if I need all the carbohydrates and fat that I can get.

And he hesitated, and then he said “Oh, go on, have some iceberg lettuce at least, it’s good for you, and we all need the vitamins. It’s not any extra”.

And I thought, you know what, I do need the vitamins. I never thought of myself as being a disordered eater, but just lately I do wonder. It’s as if I can make the effort to make healthy meals for other people, but when it’s just me I don’t bother.

He was waiting for me to make a decision.

“Yes, please”, I said, and he looked so delighted that I felt as I’d done him a favour, instead of the other way round.

Why should a complete stranger care about someone else’s health? And care enough to risk a rebuff? What a lovely man. And it was the most delicious roll that I’ve had in a long time (and a lot cheaper than the equivalent would have been in London).

And so, if you are ever in Dorchester and looking for a sandwich, I can recommend the Pic-Nick on Allington Street, just round the corner from the Tutankhamun exhibition and the art shop. And if I was you I would definitely include some salad, because we all need some more vitamins.