Quatre-vingt-neuf

Another day, another...ooh, another boat trip! I give lots of thanks for a half hour pootle down the bay a way and back, setting off from as close to my door as the buses and trains depart, so minimal effort required on a tired and creaky morning. It's been a while since I saw this little stretch of coast from the water and its always exhilarating to view the coves and cliffs from a different perspective, especially as the latter erode and change with time. I give thanks for bright sunshine and my bright smile at actually being on the sea for the first time in almost a year!

I give thanks for that stroll down to little Italy I promised myself yesterday, for some delicious diet naughtiness and a lie down on the beach ostensibly reading a book but actually studying human nature and social norms in action which never fails to fascinate. For trying to understand the motivation that produces opinions and behaviours different from my own, and for understanding I very likely don't come to the right conclusions, though nonetheless some sort of comprehension has got to be a step in the right direction towards compassion I think, don't you? Or maybe you don't! Hmm... I wonder why? Ha ha!

Closest to me were a man and a woman, not in the first flush of youth though well preserved and turned out and possibly on an early date judging by the exchange of information, or at least the stream of information, views, memories etc coming from her and the occasional permitted verbal nod or appreciative remark from the chap! Sometimes he managed to express himself for a sentence or two but any sign of a full stop or pause for breath and she'd be off again. I gave thanks for the time to witness this kind of one sided conversation without having to be the person on the receiving end, wondering if I'm supposed to respond by asking questions and eliciting more details (whether I want them or not) or launch into a monologue of my own. After pondering I still don't know the answer to that, but I give thanks for deciding what might be going on is that people do like to impart knowledge, and the one thing we all have plenty of knowledge of is ourselves, and all we say and do and read and buy and eat and drink and think! So of course there's always masses of stuff to share if we're not aware it might not be as enthralling in the telling as in the recall... I'm very grateful for the reminder to try to be a better listener, and not assume what goes on in my head is automatically welcome in someone else's ears. Also for keeping a sort of journal of course, so I can be as boringly self-absorbed as I need to be and no one else needs to feign any interest at all...