Doing the rounds!

Out and about this morning, I ran into one of the old gentlemen with whom I have a nodding acquaintance in the village. The collection has become quite large, I have to confess. They range from my age upwards. I tend to come across them early in the morning. I wonder what their wives do, assuming they have wives. In fact I am well aware that some of them have wives. So what do these ladies do? Are they all proper housewives, unlike me! Are they busy doing the daily dusting and vacuuming? I admit that I have a tendency to do housework only as and when necessary.

Some of these gentlemen have a nodding, or even a stopping-and-chatting relationship with most of the women around the village. The other day, as I walked to Tesco, I met Mike, one of the younger of the gentlemen, who walks his dog, a rescue dog, for miles and miles every day. We put the world to rights as usual.

At the bus stop later, after completing my shopping, I was chatting to another lady shopper on her way back to Delph and mentioned that I had been talking to Mike and his dog. “Oh, you mean Patrick!” she said to me. We swopped notes and decided that we were indeed talking about the same person, the one who lives alone apart from his little dog, in the basement flat behind the post office. It seems he is known by different names to different people. Maybe he leads a double life! Are his long walks nothing to do with the dog needing exercise but in fact part of a spy mission? Who knows? Next time I see him, I must clarify the name situation!

Anyway, getting back to the gentleman I ran into this morning. An elderly chap, he is one of those very gentlemanly gentlemen. You greet him and ask how he is and his stock reply is always, “All the better for seeing you, young lady!” And this even when, like this morning, I am in my most inelegant running gear.

When I first got to know him, this old gent had his arm in a sling. He told me then that he had dislocated his shoulder on a deep sea fishing trip. The fish he caught was so big and strong that it wrenched his arm around and put his shoulder out! He was waiting for surgeons to put a metal plate in his shoulder and then everything would be fine.

And there I was thinking that fishing was a fairly sedentary kind of sport!

So today, six or eight months on, I asked him how his arm was. Big mistake. His eyes filled with tears. The latest scan had shown possibly irreversible tissue damage and there was a big chance he might lose his arm. Good grief! That fish had a lot to answer for! However, he went on, “And the chap who caused the problem has not even apologised!”

I was puzzled. I thought the culprit was a fish! Before I could even ask he began to tell me a rambling tale of a former friend, someone who had worked alongside him on the allotments. At some point recently he had asked this “friend” to help him with something. The friend had refused and a bit of an argument had ensued about favours being done or not done and lack of reciprocity and stuff of that kind. In the end my old gent had turned to walk away. His “friend” growled at him not to walk away from him and grabbed him by the shoulder, the bad shoulder, the one with the metal plate. And because of the metal plate his grip caused damage. So that’s another supposedly peaceful occupation, gardening, which has led to physical harm! Whatever next?

 Did the “friend” know about the metal plate? Quite probably. Most of the village seems to know the medical history. Does he know the recent damage he has caused? Again, most likely as my old gentleman is not backward in sharing his tale of woe with one and all.

 You don’t need to follow soap operas around here. Village life is quite enough!