WHEN YOU'RE A STRANGER....

.....once Maureen gets chatting, you won't be a stranger for long and I think JulesG realised that when she sent me the Ilford camera!

This is Beata, a young (well I thought she looked 18, but she told me she was 27!) Polish lady, who was in Queens Park, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, the lovely autumn colours of the trees and watching the squirrels scampering about.

I had made up my mind to go to the park, but there weren't many people about today - so when I saw Beata, I asked if I could take her photograph, and explained what it was all about. She told me that her English was "not good" but we managed - I had to explain one or two things more than once, but on the whole, we got on very well.

She told me she had studied Cultural Anthropology, but I thought that a prolonged discussion about that, with her limited English and my total ignorance of that subject, might not be a good idea, so we stuck to the usual stuff such as how long she would be in Swindon, where she came from etc - I gave her a Blipfoto card, on which I had written how she could find her photograph, got out the little Ilford camera and as I wound it on and then pressed the button, wondered however we managed before digital cameras - but we did - all the time! I asked if she would mind if I took another photograph and she was quite keen to have her bicycle in this time, so I promised to email her a copy so she could send it to her mother in Poland (which I have done).

I then went on my way, rejoicing that I had found a stranger.

On turning out of the park, I saw a young man swigging from a can of beer, who then left it by the wall of a church and walked on, so I did shout to him and ask him why he had done it, but I cannot print his response. Glad I didn't pick him as my stranger - there might have been some blood shed or at least a thick ear!

And then - waiting at the bus stop, I got chatting to Kathryn, a lady of about my age, and we exchanged names, phone numbers and email addresses, so it looks as if I may be meeting up with another stranger sometime for a coffee and perhaps an outing somewhere.

All in all, a very good day, and I just hope that the photograph on the Ilford camera looks as good as this one.

Hopefully, the next person to have the camera will be 55Daisies.

Off now to have a little look at what Cultural Anthropology is all about - and "they" said that being retired would be boring!