The running boy

In a small concentrated corner of the local park, a woman was frantically picking up stones and throwing them into bushes and the trees low hanging branches for her black dog to run after, the dog bounding through the tall, unkempt grass, almost as fast as the stones travelled. I don't know how the dog could keep up, but it did. The woman would throw the stones one direction, then change course to another, and so it went. I don't know if the dog found the stones. How could it have known which stones were thrown? There was no time for it to inspect them beforehand, for any distinguishing marks, or to identify the shape, colour or smell. If I was the dog, I think this would have drove me mad, but maybe the woman was trying to keep up with the dog. I did go back to the same spot after walking around the park for a bit, but they'd gone. I guess I will never know.

There was only two people out jogging. One man was running back and forth on the path within a short designated distance, not that dissimilar to the dog but on the hard tarmac in his sober running gear didn't look as if he was having as much fun as the dog. It did get me thinking about how I used to run long distances when I was a kid, with ease, and I was quite fast considering I was the shortest in my year at school. I ran all the way home one lunchtime without stopping. I can't think what for. I think I'd forgotten something. But I just ran, and ran, and remember vividly running down Fulwell Road, and feeling exhilarated.

A better date

I was on a bus this afternoon and got off earlier than I intended, just before the indoor shopping centre, as the roads were busy and I thought it would be quicker, or take just as long to walk home but either way be much nicer than being trapped on the sunny side of the top deck of a slow moving bus. I was baking hot.

I needed some bread. As much as I didn't want to go into the Sainsbury's in the shopping centre, it was probably best to buy it now otherwise I'd only have to go out for it later. There's only three types of wholemeal sliced bread I like, and Sainsbury's sell one of them. It's been a while since I bought the Sainsbury's SO organic sliced wholemeal bread but today it looked a little too big for the packaging, the dimensions were different, and the surface looked like it was sprinkled with sawdust. The tag on the shelf said it was thick sliced but there was no mention of this on the packaging. I'd say it's somewhere in between medium and thick. I stood there handling it, unsure, looked at the best before date, which was tomorrow, 30th September. I would have liked a better date. I squeezed it a bit. It felt firm. I picked up another loaf, and squeezed that one a bit too. A member of staff who'd been rearranging the bread on the top shelf whilst stood on a stool must have noticed me and my predicament, went away for a bit and came back with another identical thick sliced wholemeal bread and said "1st October, a better date". I thanked her, said I couldn't read the best before date because I didn't have my glasses with me, and therefore wasn't sure how fresh it was even when I squeezed it. It was a blatant lie, I did have my glasses with me and I could read the date if I held it at arms length. I don't know why I did that, this is not the first time. I sometimes screw my eyes up at checkouts or bars when paying with loose change to give the impression I have really bad eyesight, inspecting the coins I've singled out on my open palm to cover the amount due, before handing it over.

I went to catch another bus home and ended up on the same bus I'd got off earlier. It had taken all that time for it to work its way through the single lane of traffic.

A woman with bags of shopping who got off at the same stop as me started singing, repeating the line "I want to be more than an ordinary servant".

Madam

I was addressed as madam this morning by the man at the train station kiosk. I was only partly visible to him as I reached for a bottle of water from the refridgerated display. He quickly followed this up with "How are you today, sir?" It must happen all the time, as he took it all in his stride, or maybe it's his way of having a bit of fun.

As I left the house for work, there was a big spider suspended from it's big web right outside the front door. I got caught up in a bit of the web not knowing what it was at the time, but looking back as I closed the front gate I saw the spider, undisturbed, still hanging there.

Have a banana

Today I learnt that eating 400 bananas in a day could kill you, or least cause you serious harm, and Captain Cook is from Sunderland, my hometown. A colleague told me about Captain Cook this morning, although I've since checked Wikipedia and there's no mention of Sunderland, but I didn't hear him that clearly amid all the clatter in the staff canteen. To protect his identity I'll call him Chas. I can't think what the Sunderland connection could be. Maybe he had a short holiday or a 2nd home there, overlooking the sea. You'd think it would have sea views. I can't imagine him living too far inland, like Leeds or Carlisle, although the sea would probably have been a reminder of work when all he wanted to do was switch off and wind down at the end of the working day. I got chatting to Chas, who I've only seen in passing to and from the canteen, and he detected my accent when I struck up a mundane conversation about the lack of space around the tea and coffee making facilities. Chas is from Whitby.

On my way back from lunch I saw a bicycle helmet chained to a bike and all I could think of was how handy it would be to scrunch up the till receipt in my jacket pocket and throw it in there.