As I’m crossing the road, I quickly check the time on my phone: 13:38. Craaaaap. I need to hurry or I’m going to be late for my bus, and therefore my shift at the garden centre – I tend the enormous greenhouse of roses. It’s a painstaking, sweaty job, but I love caring for them, knowing that I’m the only thing keeping them alive. (Not that I need any help staying alive – my life force manages its own affairs perfectly well. Almost too well.)     

I’m just about to turn down a curving side street when something catches my eye, a flash of blue and white at the edge of my vision. Interesting... Internally, a battle is raging inside my head, but eventually curiosity wins out (I’m going to be so late) and I go to have a look. It’s a sweetshop; painted in candy stripes of powder blue and white, with a gently flapping bubblegum pink awning. Above, a sign is written in clean, curling golden calligraphy that reads ‘Taylor and Son, Rainbow Confectionery’.  A pride flag flutters from a post on an upstairs balcony. Of course! The parade is tomorrow. It’s one of the things I’ve never tired of over the many years I've been able to watch it – it’s much better with a partner – but here is something fresh and new, a breath of life into a dying fire (so to speak). I’m sure this has been here for a while, but for some reason I’ve never seen it before. 

An old tarnished bronze bell tinkles as I enter the shop. Inside, it’s warm and bright, light filtering through the sparkling front window. It reflects off enormous floor-to-ceiling glass containers housing an enormous array of rainbow confectionery: gumdrops, lemon sherbert, liquorice, boiled sweets, barley sugars, sugar mice, lollipops, banana chews, meringue kisses, cherry curls, chocolate chunks, gummies, anything and everything you could possibly imagine all labelled neatly in a beautiful, cursive hand. 

When the bell jingles, the elderly man behind the counter raises his head. He has wavy ginger hair, liberally swirled with grey, and a smiling face with a corona of laughter lines in the corners of his eyes – and what eyes they are: keen, radiant blue like a midsummer sky or a deep pool, the spark of life in them unmistakable. This is a man who has lived with joy on his shoulder and a spring in his step, looking out with a kindhearted gaze and a steady hand.

“Ah!” he says warmly. “Lovely to meet you. How can I help?”