The early bird catches the neighbour who likes a chat
He’s resisted using it for a while, thinking it made him officially old! Yesterday, he used it for the first time. He was hesitant, and had to put it on the scanner three times before it would work. He had questions for the driver.
His fare paid and his card pocketed, he said thanks and turned for his seat. “No problem at all, mate,” the driver said. “It’s a school day, innit?” James wasn’t sure he heard him right, so the driver reiterated the point. “Every day is a school day, my friend. We’re always learning. Or we should be!”
Ha! They laughed and James sat down. He tells me he won’t be so hesitant about using the card the next time. I asked what made the difference.
“Well, I can’t be too old,” he told me. “It seems I’m still a schoolboy!”
The dead are traditionally dressed in their Sunday best, or in whatever uniforms they may have worn in life.
When a friend’s wife died, she had lost so much weight he thought she might just be wrapped in a blanket. Her friends, who knew how much her appearance had mattered to her, wouldn’t hear of it. They organised a shopping trip and, because of many similar trips with her in the past, they knew exactly what to buy for her.
Talking about this, the lady of the house informed me of a detail that had passed me by. When her mother died, she was buried in clothes belonging to her daughters and granddaughter, as if they were sending something of themselves to keep her company.
Dressing the dead. It’s the last thing we can do for them. We might as well do it in a style that would matter to them.
She’s young and was annoyed at being awake so “early”. She decided to walk to the local shop.
On her way, she passed a neighbour she’d never seen before.
He was shuffling along the pavement from one end of his garden wall to the other, with the garden gate and front door never far away.
“I was confused,” she told me. “He’d be walking towards me, then away, then back.
He looked older than my great-grandad, and walking definitely wasn’t easy for him. So, I stopped. We chatted about the weather.
“He explained it was his daily exercise and he’d be indoors until the same time tomorrow. It was a good day if he met some early riser to talk to.”
So, she started getting up earlier and going the same route twice a week.
“Who knows how long it’ll last,” she told me. “But it’s better than lying in bed.”
The car park in our local park isn’t fit for purpose. I’ve lost count of the number of complaints I’ve heard about its potholes.
I was walking past recently, when it was quiet, and saw a two-year-old boy almost fall into one of the rain-filled holes. He righted himself and then I realised he was having fun. A pink hand fished out a stone. He threw it to make a splash. Then he started stirring the water in another hole with a stick.
His mother saw me and explained they had been there for 20 minutes. He didn’t want to leave. Not even the swing park across the road could entice him.
So, that uneven driving surface… a menace, or splashing good fun? I’ve often said that life is all about how you choose to see it. I just never expected to see the proof played out in a pothole.
May sunshine greet you every day heavy clouds sail away
You always have a plan or scheme and courage to chase a dream