Boys and Girls in the Shire.

I was walking along Church Lane today when I saw a boy and girl canoodling. (I say boy and girl. They were probably around 16 or 17, which qualifies in my jaundiced view.)

They didn’t notice me at first, but then the boy – a strong looking lad – picked the girl up to carry her along the road, as men were once wont to do in movies but seem rather less inclined to copy these days. There was nothing gallant about his action, of course; he was merely showing off. I remembered my own of habit of placing my hands under the armpits of the svelte Mary Davis and lifting her above my head at about the same age, and smiled. And then they saw me and the boy returned the girl to terra firma. We crossed.

‘Keep it up, lad,’ I said. ‘You’ll be surprised at how quickly you grow too old for that sort of thing.’

The boy kept his head down and shuffled on. The girl said something in reply which I didn’t quite catch. I looked back to see her turning towards me, her face wreathed in an impish grin. I was reminded again of how teenage boys tend to be composed more of bluster than of substance, whereas teenage girls are more open, confident, and possessed of innate savoir-faire. I sometimes wonder how the species survives.

A matter of little consequence I grant, but rare enough in the Shire to be worth reporting.

I also met Millie today. She’s a horse and rather beautiful.