Francis Gay

MY WEEK

Tommy and Ellen took their two-year-old son Jamie to a stately home recently.

He was too young for the house tour, but they’d heard a new, and very expensive, play park had been built.

“We parked and got out,” Ellen told me. “Jamie went straight to the logs marking the edge of the area. He wanted to walk along them and jump off them, again and again.

“Then he discovered muddy puddles and spent a while splashing. Then he got a stick and started drawing in the dirt. Then he was entranced by the snowdrops growing on the verge.

“We were there for half an hour, having a great time, and we’d hardly left the car park.”

“It really is about the little things,” Tommy added. “Isn’t it?”

It is! In a car park, a play park, a stately home, or just living our lives. It’s all about the little things.

Siobhan and Peter are dating! Why is that news? Well, because they were both single after separate tragedies ended their long-term relationships.

Both bought dogs for company, and they used to nod to each other when they passed in the park – along with several other dog walkers they knew.

But they, and their dogs, were the only ones out this day. The awful weather seemed to have kept everyone else at home.

Commenting on the weather, Siobhan said their pets must be very special to them to get them out in all sorts of weathers. Peter laughed and said, “Physical weather and emotional weather.” That was the start of a discussion about the emotional storms each of them had been through, and what it took to keep them going. And, as I said, they are dating now.

Dogs, eh? They’ll walk beside you through all sorts of weathers!

There’s a half-empty tenement block near where Rosie lives. She was out yesterday, clearing a patch in its long, overgrown back garden.

You see, she doesn’t have a garden of her own and thought growing veg would be fun and help her mental health.

“What if someone complains?” I asked. “Then I’ll stop,” she replied. “Hopefully after I’ve had time to enjoy it a little.”

“But, what if kids ruin your work?” I asked. “Then I’ll get to enjoy doing it over again,” she told me.

“And what if people steal your veg when it grows,” I asked. “Because you won’t be able to keep an eye on it.”

“I’m going to put a sign up that says, ‘Free Veg! Help Yourself’,” she said.

Who knows what will eventually grow on that plot, but it sounds to me like Rosie has already grown a healthy crop of attitudes and responses to life!