Small town living

I used to imagine, back in the day when I lived in the city (Glasgow) as opposed to merely visiting (Edinburgh) as we do now, that people who lived in smallish towns must keep bumping into friends and acquaintances. Over the years, and particularly since retiring, I've come to realise that this isn't really the case - you meet the people that circumstances cause you to meet. So when I was teaching I naturally saw my colleagues, and often saw them in the supermarket because we all shopped after school or on Saturdays; I rarely saw them from the moment I stopped teaching. Nowadays I see church people at churchy times, Pilates people at the class, neighbours in the vicinity of our house - but that's usually it.

Today felt really rather sociable, however. I rang my bestie Di after breakfast to announce my return, and an hour later she was at my door because she'd intended coming into town to look at carpets and I'd offered to accompany her just because ... The carpet shop is nothing like any other you'd ever see, being a small cramped room in a small building filled with rolls of carpet, stacks of laminate flooring, and piles of carpet sample books either stacked on the floor or dangling from displays. The proprietor was busy helping a delivery man pile newly-arrived laminate, so we were left to rummage, and left with two books of samples.

We were walking up the street from the shop when I saw Himself across the road talking to a former colleague. We crossed, I said hello, we moved on - and then I was hailed by another former colleague, this time from my own department, my mentor in my days of scary climbing and learning to abseil. I've not seen him for three years at least, so we stopped to catch up. Then Himself rocked up, shortly afterwards followed by the chap he'd been with, and Di took a photo to commemorate the event. I had to use it here, though I have to say I look like a lunatic in it, partly because I'm bent over at an ungainly angle rescuing the carpet samples from toppling over on the pavement. Bit Last of the Summer Wine stuff ...

We were supposed to be having a visit from the joiner to deal with some loose floorboards, inconveniently arranged (by the joiner) for any time after 1pm. Eventually Himself got fed up waiting and phoned them, only to be told the chap wasn't coming as he'd been dispatched elsewhere. My cross comment was, I hope, audible at the other end. We went for a walk instead, along the coast road and out the Ardyne beach road, where we met four more people we knew and spent some time comparing our various physical declines and discussing with one couple the joys of grandchildren, the offspring of our own children who were contemporaries at school. It was jolly, though we chatted for so long that the cloud that heralded the incoming front crept over us, replacing the bright blue sky we'd had all afternoon.

And then the Government began to crumble. How can people still say (as they did on the BBC News) that they still have a lot of time for "Boris"? I despair - and my resolve to be clear of them hardens more.