Yeah Well

I have moaned in the past about the local chemist deciding to increase its clientele by taking on the role of methadone dispensary for the area, but I'm beginning to revise my views. After all, now if I sit in my front garden at the right time in the morning I'm almost guaranteed to overhear a conversation, (don't ask me why, but the methadone-taking community seems to conduct its conversations at a very high volume, [which I imagine is why they've recently put up a thick glass wall between the dispensary section of the chemist and the rest of the shop - in order to seal off some of the noise]) and almost always that conversation makes me realise that there is a rich tapestry of life going on in the suburbs around me and my bit of the tapestry is probably nicer than most.

Lately though it's been oddly stormy which has meant there's been very little opportunity to sit in the front garden. But yesterday was lovely - at least to begin with (late afternoon brought astonishing thunder and lightning and a smattering of rain as well). Anyway seeing the sun out at around 10. 30, I got the newspapers and a cup of coffee and took my position on the warm brick of my front step. I hadn't been there long when I heard two foghorn voices coming down the street.

One sounded middle-aged; the other sounded younger, (but not youthful). Both of them were female and this is what they said:

"Yeah well, I don't care. I'm happy on my own anyway."

"Yeah well, you wait till you're 59 and on your own like me and tell me you're still happy."

"Yeah well, you should have made dad happy and then he wouldn't have drunk himself to death - and anyway that's just another kind of materialism, that finding someone stuff. You've got to find your own happiness from within you, not look for someone else to give you happiness."

"Yeah well, if I'd known what a little prick you were going to turn out to be, I wouldn't have had you, that's for sure."

Families, eh.