Slacker

So it appears I've turned into a total slacker virtually blogging to a halt. Its just that I'm in this treacle waiting for things to happen on the house front, work continues in its own irritating manner, its too hot to sleep (must remember to put up the winter duvet) and big brother is rotting my brain. Ah the great british summer. I have been to see Fuerzabruta though - it was good.

On a total tangent,I woke up this morning remembering two instances which led me to realise that a. London wasn't as it once was and b. things are different for men in the city. My dad used to walk to work in the 70s, when I was going to St Leornards Nursery school I used to walk with him, every person he passed on the street would exchange good mornings with him. In the 90s when he started working from home he gradually started to get to know the people in the neighbourhood we lived in because he was around a lot in the daytime and he used to say hello to all those people. Me, I took the lead from pops and it got me into two embarassing situations.

In the early 80s,on my way to school I used to call for Romana and we'd walk together. Near to her house there was a dishy older boy and he lived with some curly haired man who we thought was his dad. I used to say hello to people I passed on the way to school (perhaps a bit forward for a teenager). So one time when I was probably 14 this curly haired man came to meet me at the school gates and asked to speak to me alone - he said he'd seen the way I looked at him and he just wanted me to know that he couldn't have a relationship with me due to the difference in age. I was aghast. Partly becuase I had no idea anything I did could be so misinterpreted and partly because this ancient hideous curly haired man could think that I fancied him. Needless to say I changed my route to school and started only looking at the pavement when walking - perhaps leading to the onset of the teen angst years.

One time I had been walking with pops and he stopped to chat to the man with the airdale dog. When I next say man with the airdale dog I said hello to him and he totally ignored me, in fact seem very much flustered and bustled along up the road. Confused I later brought this up with pops and he said the man was of an age where he probably considered it inappropriate to speak to young women in the street. So, I never spoke to him again.

Men it seems can exchange pleasantries. Women can't unless its to other women - for fear of it being mistaken for flirting. Sometimes I don't want to chat to the women on my street - theres a scottish woman with a dog and a teenage son who always calls me hen and once talking won't stop (I pretend to be talking on the phone sometimes to avoid her), then there's the irish woman with bleached blond hair who still wants to talk about my pooor mother (who died over a decade ago). The widow of the man with the airdale (both he and the dog have since gone) is nice to speak to - brief hellos, and the old spanish lady (sort of square - as wide as she was tall) was also good to chat to but she's moved to Southend to be with her son, his wife and their children.