The woman ahead of me in the supermarket queue ended her chat saying, “It’ll probably be a couch afternoon for me.”

When it came my turn, I nodded after her and said to the checkout operator, “Nice to have an afternoon off.”

“Ohh, it’s not that,” she said. “Today is the anniversary of her husband’s death. She’ll be on the couch looking through photos, remembering him, and probably having a good cry.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Is she a friend?”

“I don’t think I’ve spoken to her before,” she said. “But I try to talk to people in a way that lets them say what they need to say. And that’s what she needed to share today.”

Talking to people in a way that lets them say what they need to say? Now, that is a skill the world, never mind the supermarket, could do with more of.