It was so pretty in my home town of Dawlish this morning. The sun was shining and it was raining golden leaves every time there was a puff of wind. Accustomed now to wearing sensible warm clothes, I did not mind even the chill of winter in the air. A friendly black swan made his acquaintance, then glided off when he realised we had no food for him; even the seagulls and pigeons (normally squabbling over food and stealing pastries or fish and chips from out of the hands of babies) were at peace with the world – they had just been fed by the wild-life wardens.

Chris and I were about to walk past the premises of a real-estate agent friend of ours when I remembered the phone call I had received last week…

“You and Chris walked right by our Dawlish office without even looking in. I was waving like mad but you two waltzed by,” said David in a half-laughing reproach.

“But you’re never in the Dawlish office,” I joshed, “How were we to know that you were there?”

“Well, you could have looked in to see if I was….”

With those words still in my memory, I suggested to Chris that we ought to take a look in through the window to see if David was there. The shop windows were filled with Christmas decorations and the glass door was adorned with stars and posters making it awfully difficult to see through. Chris held back, preferring to keep on the outer part of the pavement while I  went closer, right up to the glass, to peer through into the office.

I could see only two people inside, a blonde lady who didn’t notice me, and a young woman who looked my way from her desk. I did not know either of them. I reckoned that our friend, being so nice and friendly, would surely employ friendly staff so I smiled and waved enthusiastically. The girl was not amused in the slightest and seemed not to understand that when a person smiles at you, you really should smile back. Etiquette was not her strong suit, apparently. She glanced at the blonde then back at me, at the same time mouthing words I could see but not hear. I high-tailed it out of there before the older lady estate agent had the time to turn around.

By odd coincidence David telephoned just a short while ago to arrange a lunch date. (We must be telephonepathic!) 

“We were walking by your Dawlish office this morning and there were so many things obscuring the windows that I had to put my face right up to the glass to see in; but you weren’t there… and your staff didn’t recognise me, nor I them,” I said with a chuckle.

“And they probably thought you had escaped from Langdon,” David interjected.

He got my drift – Langdon is our local hospital for the mentally impaired.