Every day, she shuffles along the sidewalk from her house to my driveway. She stops
chez moi and executes a creaky about-face turn before beginning her return trek. Her house is just around the corner, a two-minute walk for most of us. For her, though, it's a good 45-minute outing, an exercise in navigation and stabilization as she pilots her walker the 200 meters between our homes.
The first time I smiled and waved to her through my front window, she looked a bit baffled, but she eventually waved back. Now we smile and wave whenever she stops in front of my house and I happen to be in the window.
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| Photo: http://yearofthepigstudio.wordpress.com/ |
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Sometimes, if I'm out and about, I'll happen to pass her as she's hobbling along the street. I smile and wave. She always looks a bit baffled to begin with. Then she smiles and waves. We've started saying "hello" – her in her language, me in mine. Early in December, with a lot of pantomiming and a few chuckles, she advised me which bough would be best for the final Christmas bauble I was hanging on my Mountain Ash tree.
She is about four-and-a-half feet tall. She always wears bedroom slippers that are too big for her. Sometimes she talks to (or puts a curse on ... I can't tell) the bushes along her route. I don't know her name or anything about her ... other than she is part of my neighbourhood.
