I recorded my first Letter from Lymington today. It’s my interim recorded ‘letter’ for the FATN monthly magazine, replacing, temporarily, my Letter from Sweden. For anyone interested, it’s here. Or you can find it on the Podcast page above. I also discovered, then started uploading my Flicker photos to, a (second) new plugin. I became a bit disappointed with the first one I started using. You can see what I’ve accomplished so far, here. Obviously, it’s currently a work in progress.
Today, being a Friday, meant shopping first thing and I realized I’m starting to be recognized. From the chap in the fruit and veg section in Waitrose who likes an early morning chat, to the two women who have a regular end of week meet just around the corner from the house.
I think the two women go for a jog together. I see them at the end as they say their goodbyes. One walks to her house while the other heads home, walking by me. She has said good morning every time I’ve seen her but, today, the greeting was accompanied by a smile of recognition rather than simply a smile for a stranger. Also, the other woman, who I only see from a distance, took the trouble to give me a wave.
I first noticed the chatty fruit and veg chap when a customer was telling him a fishing story. The only reason I noticed was because the storyteller’s wife told him to stop distracting the fruit and veg chap from his work.
She was unnecessarily rude, I thought. With her husband, though, not the fruit and veg man. She then told her husband to go and find the mushrooms. Which he happily did.
There’s also a regular customer who I see in the mornings. She tends to wheel her trolley in the opposite direction to me, so we constantly pass each other in the various aisles. This morning was the first time she’s given me a smile of recognition.
Like my other micro-relationships, I do wonder what these various people will think happened to me when we leave Lymington and return to Sweden.
I also wonder what will become of this motorbike which, like Sleeping Beauty, is slowly being devoured by brambles.
As the weather warms, so the brambles will inexorably tighten their stranglehold on this poor, seemingly abandoned, Triumph. I guess the actual triumph may belong to the flora.
Oh, and Melanie (full name Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk) died two days ago. She was 76. Brand New Key was a huge hit when I was a teenager. The tune is now an earworm, given I’ve heard it a few times today. Dammit!
