I have just returned home from a simple but very enjoyable mini-gathering that was organised to celebrate my community garden’s 2nd birthday. The event started at about 6 pm at the seating area located at the void deck below the apartment block that was near my community garden at Serangoon North.
The decision to have such a gathering was an abrupt one as the idea to have it came into my head about a fortnight ago. I realised it was November soon then and I picked a weekend that was near the actual date which was the fifth day of November when the community garden was declared open two years ago by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, the Member of Parliament for my constituency.
My community gardeners enjoying their chat after the dinner.
Despite the heavy downpour, I am very touched by the 100% turnout of my community gardeners for this gathering. Sunday evenings are generally a precious time for families to get together privately but my community gardeners made it a point to attend this gathering. They also brought along a sumptuous spread of homecooked food for the potluck dinner. I cannot cook and I brought along an Angie’s the Choice ice-cream cake for the event. However, I felt rather embarrassed by the puny little cake that I brought after comparing with the amount and variety of food that each of my community gardener has contributed!
After helping ourselves with the food and drinks, my community gardeners and I went on to chat about everything under the ‘moon’ (afterall, it was night time and there was a new moon) while their kids went out to play. Their spouses gathered around another table to have their ‘Men’s Talk’. Interestingly, the topics that the ladies chatted about were largely not about gardening and plants. One of my community gardeners, Dan Mei, shared some spooky tales and one of them that made all our hair stand was about a resident’s sighting of something supernatural near the community garden recently!
Everyone gathering to pose around the PUNY cake contributed by me… 
To date, tonight’s gathering was the first such occasion that had been organised for all of us but it had been a memorable occasion for me as it brought everyone together and offered an opportunity that allowed each one of us to know one another better. Community gardening has brought likeminded residents who previously do not know each other together.
I am glad to hear that everyone enjoyed the get-together very much and it was definitely a success. Hence I thought we should organise something similar more frequently and a good occasion to start the ball rolling is to celebrate every community gardener’s birthday!
