An Odd Couple and Other Notes.

After having two phials of my blood extracted at the GP surgery today, I paid a visit to my old haunt the Costa Coffee shop in Ashbourne. Sitting on the opposite side of the room was a couple – a young man of around twenty, and a woman who I would guess was around fifteen years his senior. The young man was facing forward and showed little expression or interest in anything. The woman, however, was leaning towards him with that look on her face. (You know – the look? I’m sure you do.) I saw her put her arm around his shoulder before caressing his neck. He remained impassive, but when I glanced at his companion she was staring at me with hot, piercing eyes and what appeared to be a mild expression of triumph on her face. She looked foreign to me, possibly Czech I thought, though on what basis I couldn’t rightly say. And then they left together and I remained intrigued.

So then I turned my attention to the high school girls sitting at various tables around the establishment, and it struck me that they look so different from the high school girls of my generation. The boys don’t look so different, but the girls do. They’re nearly all around 7ft tall with legs that look as though Jack has been spreading his magic beans around. Heaven knows what he would find if he climbed one of those overgrown appendages: something unsavoury, I suspect. (Or maybe not. Given my own history in such matters, I’m led to presume that cynicism has climbed the ladder of my jaded psyche and now occupies a dominant position.)

And by way of returning to matters entirely wholesome, I might mention that I’ve seen the Lady B three times over the past five days. Having become accustomed to seeing her more at the rate of once every five months, it seems she has become the proverbial bad penny. Not that I’m complaining, you understand. The sun still comes out every time, just as it always did.