[To listen to an audio version on this blog post please click here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1396123/8043423]

Last week, I shared a message about choosing The Road More Scenic. This week, I’d like to share my surprise when ‘scenic’ can be synonymous with ‘intentionally different’. Whilst there are many beauty spots in Poole, Dorset, Stanley Green Road isn’t one of them! It was, however, an alternative way to my destination, so I took it.

They say, “A change is as good as a rest,” but sometimes a change is as good as a wake-up call. Coming round the corner, hungry after an early visit to the Dentist, I noticed, “Rob’s Filling Station.” This is a play on words because Rob’s Street Food outlet is part of a complex of automotive industrial units.

I asked Rob if he was OK with old-fashioned cash. “Oh, yes!” he declared, and went on to explain the punitive costs of accepting cards. He expanded, explaining that even if people didn’t have cash, he trusted them to bring it later on… and, if they were so desperate for food that they didn’t pay, he said, “I say ‘let them have it!’” I smelt a story! Clearly, Rob wasn’t in this for the money.

I said, “There’s a story there, isn’t there?”

Without hesitation, Rob explained how his 17-year-old son had died in his Mother’s arms from an aortic inherited problem. He confessed that they shouldn’t have had children as his wife’s life expectancy was 32 years because of the same health issue, though, thankfully, she is still going strong in her 50s. The 17 years with his son were all amazing and he valued every one of them.

Rob has used his experience and suffering to re-evaluate what is important in life. Aside from delivering food for the soul alongside the most magnificent Street Food, he has been instrumental in providing opportunities for others. These include setting several disadvantaged connections up in business and being in influencer in raising awareness and attracting the funding for a World Leading centre for Laparoscopic and Robotic surgery here in Poole. That’s a longer story!

Who knows what good souls and great stories await us when we deviate from our habitual ways and discover the new. I was shocked, humbled, and delighted to have met Rob and ‘Uncle Mark’ his brother-in-law. Thus, I shall be returning to record their story so that more people can experience an attitude that I covet.

Rob has an attitude of gratitude for every day. Every day is a bonus. Money is merely a means to make a difference, and there is much ‘difference’ to make in the World. I try to be grateful but have to work at it… Rob’s a ‘natural’! I left inspired as much by his food for thought, his food for the soul, as by his delicious dishes.

Lex

A Moodscope member.