Conversations

I had a lovely day of sunshine and conversations yesterday.

First off was an early walk with Dave down the Trail to Hassop Station for a coffee. We sat outside in the sunshine and talked about 

How Labour’s lack of socialist policies and the cutting of welfare benefits is handing success to Reform; 

Why our newish Labour MP had chosen this week to respond for the very first time to letters from each of us…after ignoring our letters for nine months;

The use of subtext in screenplays and domestic conversations;

Why Dave doesn’t read fiction;

The fact that I know what Dave watches on YouTube (woodwork, music and politics) whereas he hasn’t a clue what I watch on my iPad, apart from Neighbours;

And how we both like walking down to Hassop Station not for the coffee, but for the walk and the chat.

After that I drove into Sheffield for lunch with a friend, but on the way, I spotted the lovely Jaine and two and a half year old MsX going home from the park. What a treat encounter! I talked to MsX about how many times she went down the big slide - she goes down the big slide on her own now! And I’m telling you, it is a very big slide.

Then I had lunch with my friend - who I’ve known for 50 years. How is it that I am so old I have a friend I’ve known that long? I first met her when she was a student doing a thesis on spoonfeeding babies, and Isaac and I were subjects.

We sat in the sunshine and I had the best bacon sandwich I’ve had in years, and we  talked about

Our families;

Our health;

How crap this so-called Labour government is;

Good films we’d seen recently and good books we’d read;

Our paintings/art;

Her pottery;

Art classes;

Trying to shuffle off longstanding voluntary responsibilities we had onto other people and failing;

The lack of volunteers;

The doings of mutual friends;

How beautiful the spring trees and blossoms are.

Then I went to the opticians to choose some new specs and I talked to Het, by which I mean I texted pics of me in two options, and as always she responded in time for me to choose the right ones - I had given her two choices and she close the ones I was favouring.

The rejects

The ones we picked

Later I spoke to MsX’s dad on the phone who said her latest bon mots were (when asked to put on her shoes) “I don’t know where they are, I’m afraid. I’ll have to go and search for them.”

And later I spoke to the lovely Jaine on the phone, because I realised that in our earlier chance encounter, I had talked to MsX, and asked Jaine after her family but not about her,* and I felt awful and wanted to apologise. 

*this kind of thing unfortunately happens when you are besotted with your grandchildren.

The phrase “the long slide” has stuck in my head, and now I realise where it comes from: