Passing Traffic.

You know how it is. You’re walking up the lane on a dull but dry summer’s evening when you hear a car approaching at speed from behind, so you step onto the narrow verge running alongside the hedge in order that it may have untrammelled access to the tarmac of the narrow road. As the car passes you notice the registration plate, and realise that it almost certainly contains, and is maybe even being driven by, someone of whom you have long been inordinately fond. But there has been no diminution of speed, no hoot of a horn, and no arm waved from an open window by way of acknowledging your presence. You’d be a bit miffed, wouldn’t you?

But then you continue your sojourn and discover that one of your favourite lady horses – Millie by name – is back in evidence in the field beyond the little wood. She receives your gift of an apple and two carrots enthusiastically, and the day is saved.

*  *  *

Today I read of an indigenous man who has been living alone in the Brazilian rainforest for twenty six years, ever since the other six members of his tribe were killed by wild animals masquerading as miners or loggers or some such. Now he has been found dead - apparently of natural causes - by those who monitor indigenous people from a distance. The news report referred to him as ‘the loneliest man in the world’, so I expect he sent even fewer Christmas cards than I do.