Patience is a virtue

My second morning in Ely last weekend proved to be a bit misty but it soon cleared. That left me plenty of time to complete my routine chores of cleaning and polishing. 

I then took a stroll into town and rummaged through the street market and charity shops. 

You know, I sometimes wonder if I'm invisible. Saturday was one such day. As I mooched about, I was constantly bumped and jostled by people changing directions on pavements without looking, I was stopped in my tracks by people chatting in shop doors or between shelves, and, on one occasion, as I waited to let an old lady complete her purchase at a till, she flung her shopping bag over her shoulder and hit me in the chest. And she didn't even realise she'd done it! If my school career adviser had known about my ability to blend into my surroundings so well, he could have pointed me in the direction of being an undercover policeman or international spy rather than working for a local council. My whole life would have turned out differently.

Anyway, it got me thinking, I've come to the conclusion that people should undergo compulsory walking tuition once they reach a certain age. The aim would be to teach them to look behind before they stop or change direction, to avoid entering into conversations in shop doors or gangways, and to find their purses or wallets well before they get to the till. 

Of course this problem is not restricted to just older people. I'll give you any example. Later on Saturday I went to Lidl to get a few bits and pieces for tea and I chose a till that looked like it would be easy to get through without any problems or delays. How wrong could I be. As the young lady, already at the checkout, was having her shopping rung through the till, she suddenly remembered something she had forgotten and just went off to find it. When she came back it was rung through the till. Then she remembered something else and did the same and then, to cap it all, she did it a third time. Of course, I was not in a hurry so I used this time to practice my patience skills - something I'm not usually very good at. When all her goods were totted up, she got out one of her many credit cards and found it didn't work so had another go and third go and then gave up. She then got another card out and tried that. Fortunately that one worked. While all this was going on, everyone else in the shop was passing through their checkouts without any holdups. The blockage was at the one I chose and she was oblivious to the fact that I was standing there, waiting. 

When she eventually left the shop, the checkout girl looked at me (so I was visible after all) and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief, we had a brief exchange of jolly banter (we British are good at that) and I promptly paid for my food and drink and left the shop making sure there were no 'vacant, confused or forgetful looking people' loitering in my vicinity.

So, where is all this leading? I know patience is a virtue but when presented with extreme situations like the ones I experienced on Saturday, there is a limit to how much patience I can muster and mine proved to be very low. To be honest, if my patience was a fuel tank, I would have been running on empty. 

So, what can I do about it?  Rather than getting into any direct action like asking these people to 'get out of my way', or campaigning in public for better street skills, or lobbying my MP to designate separate areas for vague people and normal people (like me), I'm going to set up an e-petition on the Government's website. It will put forward the very strong argument for the introduction of compulsory walking training for the over 60's and a supermarket checkout protocol for dim people. To get the government to discuss these important issues in parliament just needs another 99,999 people to sign the petition. That shouldn't be too much of a problem.

However, there is one fundamental flaw in my plan - I turn 60 next month and I'm sure I don't need walking training. 

Rethink needed.