Being an Object of Scrutiny.

I was walking along Mill Lane today when a car drew up alongside and stopped. The view through the open driver’s window revealed an elderly woman of unknown identity, and she said:

‘I see you’re not wearing a coat today. You usually wear a coat when you go for a walk, but not today. Is that because it’s warm and sunny?’

I replied in the affirmative, of course. What else could I do? (Actually, I could have asked ‘Who are you and why do you stop my way upon this blasted heath? You should be a woman and yet your beard forbids me to interpret that you are so.’ I think it unlikely, however, that she would have been familiar with the provenance of the question, and that the irony and humour contained within it would therefore have proved elusive. In other words, she might have been offended, so I’m glad I didn’t think of it at the time.)

What little remained of the conversation was too perfunctory even to be memorable, so I won’t bother trying to remember it. Eventually she drove on. I think I waved.

It was a salutary experience nonetheless because it demonstrated yet again that I’m being observed in my solitary perambulations. Maybe I’m being studied, analysed even. And that’s the problem with small English villages. They’re full of Miss Marples.