Day 229
Todays word from Susie: SPUDDLE To be uselessly busy, to fuss about while achieving nothing or very little!
I think for most of 2020 I have been spuddling? Wendy and I were discussing last night how the fun has gone out of life. It is difficult to be spontaneous when your not sure what sort of risk is out there. By fun I mean those things which you do to only enjoy yourselves. Sometimes for no reason other than you can. Planning is limited, you can’t just pick up and decide to go somewhere. We all know the reason. Plans are on hold. The whim to just go and do has been eliminated for now. We can laugh and enjoy ourselves sure but we all restricted in some way. It’s a comfortable restriction but a frustration all the same. I for one am sick of getting up each morning only to see the same dull view out of the window.
I apologise for the depressing you it is not my intention to bring you down. So in order to bring some joy into the proceedings a happy story.
Next Stop please
She ran as fast as she was able, it was hard at her age. She had to get to town. Breathless she arrived at the same time as the bus. She lent on the shelter for support. The queue shuffled forward, she stumbled and trod heavily on someone’s foot. A man, he looked familiar. He caught her elbow and helped her right herself.
“ Here lean on me” The voice seemed familiar too.
“Thank you, I’m so sorry, your foot”
“ No harm done, stout brogues” He smiled, so familiar
He helped her board, she just remembered to show her pass, noticing he did the same.
Helping her onto a seat he slide in beside.
“ There” he said “ Your on now”
She turned to look at him “I was rushing, not as sprightly as I once was” He smiled, she thought it was a nice smile, comforting, vague recognition tugged in her mind.
“ I’m Michael”
“Gloria”
“Nice to meet you Gloria” Nice manners to, well turned out, smart.
“Going to town, I was running late, I’m usually at the stop well before” She felt she was babbling
He nodded “Well you made it, so alls well eh?” She nodded back “ Yes thank you, your very kind”
They sat in silence, she kept sneaking a look at him, trying to place him, it was tantalisingly at the edge, she just couldn’t grasp it. She had to know, it would drive her mad. “Excuse me” she asked “ I can’t help feeling I know you”
Michael laughed, a gentle laugh and smiled, she knew that smile, she liked it. “ Wondered when you’d ask” he replied enigmatically. “ I’ve changed, we both have but I knew it was you, Gloria Denny”
She gasped, no one had called by that name for forty years. “ That’s my maiden name, I’m Braithwaite now.” A light switched on , suddenly, candles and music, a boat, a distant scene from yesteryear. “ Michael, Michael Farr, your Michael Farr” He laughed again “ I am, knew it would come back to you”
She smiled, memories came flooding back. She blurted “ You were so handsome” and giggled like the young girl she’d once been
The bus lurched and came a stop at traffic lights. Only one more stop to go.
“ You were the prettiest girl at the dance, I remember like it was yesterday” he sighed
She wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you live round here”
“ Yes not far from the bus stop”
“I live two streets down, on my own now” her stop was in view
The bus came to halt “This is my stop” she said He let her out
They said goodbye
She was stepping down when she felt a hand on her arm, she turned “Gloria I’ll be at the bus stop same time next week”
Her smile blossomed as the doors closed behind her.
Stay well
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