I was driving into my little town in NZ when I blew a tyre, fortunately almost outside our local mechanic, unfortunately after 5pm so they were closed.

There was a young couple sitting in the open door of their van in the mechanic's car park, with the hood up, looking a bit despondent. I knew I had a spare tyre in the back of my car but no tools, and I'm pretty unconfident with ye olde tyre change anyway, so I was sort of awkwardly poking around wondering exactly what to do next when the guy popped up next to me and asked if I needed a hand with the tyre.

I was so grateful, he whipped out some basic tools and got things started - turned out they were on a tour around the country and their van had just died from something expensive and slow to fix and they were resigned to sleeping in the car park of the mechanic that night.

Well, he fixed my wheel up lovely and I took them both home to my cottage, to a homemade rhubarb and apple crumble and a cosy little spare room, and dropped them back into town the next day.

What was a pain in the butt for all of us turned into a fun night of laughter and good food and nice company because they generously offered a helping hand to a baffled lady.