This is a small story about something that is seemingly so minor that perhaps I should be embarrassed to tell.

Eighteen months ago a friend gave me three tiny passionfruit plants. Eventually and without sufficient care, I planted them in three spots around the garden and left them to fend for themselves. I hadn’t planted them in composted or enriched soil, didn’t fertilise and I seldom watered them. A bad result seems predictable but the story ends well. While they struggled to survive, the occasional tendril gradually and exceptionally slowly wended its way through lattice pieces I had screwed to the fence.

Every so often I would notice the plants and realise not much activity was happening. Then one day I saw a couple of flowers. A fast thought whizzed through my head; the plants are having their last hurrahs, their ‘I must reproduce before perishing moment’. I walked away and forgot them.

Then last week I noticed that two plants each had one passionfruit fully formed with one blackening/purpling as it should. I felt a tremor of excitement. How lucky I am. How grateful I am. I picked the fruit and made a mental note to look after these plants in the future in order to grow a decent crop of these delicious fruits next year.

I am reminded of a cocktail I invented when I lived in tropical Queensland. I called it my Tropical Fish Drink. If I remember correctly the recipe was simple:  Into a tall glass I splashed more than a decent pour or two of Gin, the same for Blue Curacao liqueur, added a heaped teaspoon of passionfruit with yellow coated seeds, then topped these liquids with sparkling water/soda water.  After a quick stir, the colourful ‘fish’ swam around in the blue ‘water’ of the tropics.  Wonderfully refreshing and I don’t remember the alcohol level being too obscene.