Why?
Well, let me explain.
I don't know about you, but I normally take the same route to and from work every day.
Since I work full time, that means that five days a week, at approximately the same time each day, I'm doing the same thing, in the same place as all the other people who are also living their lives as prompted by their personal timetables.
So I often see the same things over and over again. Points during my journey where I glance over and check out the view.
Like the brow of a small hill, just outside of Seal, where the traffic flow can slow and jam as the road narrows at the bottom just before a blind corner and an informal crossroads.
When it does, and I'm stuck waiting for the cars to chug slowly on, I glance to my right, and see how the field is looking.
This was what I saw in November 2005
Its much the same today.
The fence posts have been replaced, but are still rough hewn, irregular lines of grey, wobbling up and down as I drive past.
The shrubs have been cut down and regrown.
Sometimes there are sheep nibbling their way down to the valley.
Or a tractor.
Once there was a helicopter, black sleek and slightly sinister, just sitting, silent and solitary, on the grass.
Perhaps, next time I'm stuck in a total jam, I'll take another photo to compare....
I see people too.
Generally though, I'm not aware of seeing the SAME people.
Except for one.
For at least the past year, almost every Saturday, I have driven past the same person, walking the 3ish miles along the A25.
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The first thing I think I noticed was her hair.
Being of the short, tousled (aka scruffy) titian variety myself, her long blond mane caught my eye as I drove past.
But it might just as likely been the oversized jacket she was wearing.
Which brought to mind the very comfy, completely ugly, massive denim jacket that I used to own during one of my pregnancies, that I have to shamefacedly own up to wearing rather a lot AFTER said pregnancy when i was going through one of my 'why-do-I-care-what-I-look-like-when-I-have-baby-sick-on-my-shoulder' phases.
The juxtaposition of an impression of tall, slender, manicured, blondness and ginormous tatty lumberjack jacket made an impact.
When I saw her walking in almost the same place the following saturday, I did a more active recce.
Same hair, same jacket, same impression of height and slenderness....um, rather extreme slenderness in fact, but that might just have been the black tights and big jacket.
I mean, thats almost certain to make your joints look a little, well, knobbly....
Isn't it?
My dad used to describe one of my tall, slim, school-friends as being "all legs and teeth, like a colt just learning to walk" when I was having a teenage low esteem session, and wishing for the inches that she had, rather than the curves that were prominently mine!
That was almost the impression I got.
All legs and hair! and Jacket, it's impossible to ignore the jacket.
Its a longish walk, but when I think back to the distance I used to cover getting to school in london - through a park, down a couple of long roads, past the railway station and the town hall, then down the length of the high street, it wasn't really any different from that.
A bit of a solitary walk though. The pavement is bounded by woods on either side, with very few other walkers, but lots of traffic whizzing past.
So I have been looking out for her as I drive to work on Saturdays.
Partly to do that thing we all do, of imagining the lives of people we notice, making up story-boards in our heads...
Is she a stable hand, or training for some endurance event?
But I have to admit, that as the months have gone on, and those slender-to-start-with legs seem to have reduced in thickness even further, while the jacket has grown ever bigger, I check to make sure that I don't see a pile of cloth in a heap by the edge of the woods.
I was later than usual driving to work today.
For once I had an admin day, and didn't need to set up the practice before the patients started arriving. So although I was at work before 9.00am, it was about 15 minutes later than normal.
I was at the bottleneck in Seal when I drove past her.
Instead of the width of at least a carriageway and a half, plus constant cars and vans blocking my view, there was about 15ft.
She was wearing the jacket, the black tights and had her hair sleek and straightened, falling to her waist.
And she stumbled as she walked.
:(
One of my daughters ( the one who had inhabited my version of the jacket with me ) used to figure skate, and at the rink there were a number of extremely slender but completely fit and healthy girls.
One of them was also tall, blond, and so slim that when she spun on the ice, her waist in side profile appeared about 6 inches wide. Some people used to worry that she was unnaturally slim.
She wasn't, she just came from a family of tall slender people, and ate well. She had to eat well so that she had the energy to skate at the competitive level that she did! But she worried that she would always be, in her view, straight and skinny.
As she grew up, her curves appeared, and she's now a tall, slender, shapely woman. So is her mum.
Sadly for my daughters, their genetics mean they have inherited my lack of height and tendency to dodgy knees, but we'll skip over that.
I wish that my story board for the blonde jacket girl had an uplifting ending.
...and the crowd cheered as she lifted the trophy.
or,
....the owner told her that she was being given a raise in recognition of the hard work she had put in at the stables.
But that stumble gave me pause.
And I wondered if she would be walking that road next week.
