My favourite thing to do, when it isn’t too crowded or busy, is to eavesdrop on the public transport.
Bus, train, tube, all are fertile ground for interesting snippets of others’ private lives.
It was early evening and we were on our way to Camden to see a concert. Opposite us on the tube were three young people in their early twenties I’d guess.
A man, a slender, very wired, pretty girl and her friend, not so slender, not so wired.
Hubs would have noticed noses, I picked up on the body language. The girls were talking and the young man was sitting on the edge of his seat trying to be a part of the conversation, occasionally his girlfriend would turn to him and nod and pat his leg to include him. They were talking about Raves. Their accents were cultured.
“I don’t think my mother would associate the word rave with drugs…” the not so slender girl was saying;
“Oh and I don’t think she would associate a rave as anything bad if you said you were going with me,” said her slender, wired, pretty friend.
“Not that my mother doesn’t know I do drugs…” continued the not so slender girl, “I didn’t out and out tell her, but when she asked me once I didn’t say ‘no’ straight away and she put two and two together. You’re right, she wouldn’t have a clue about raves.”
Her slender, wired, pretty friend said,
“My Mum doesn’t know about drugs either, I came home late one night and she said to me, ‘what have you been taking? Coke?’ and I looked at her and thought, ‘what the f***’ because that was the drug I had been taking that time and I laughed and rolled my eyes. ” She used her very expressive hands and eyes to convey her version of the conversation and her bobbing head had her mismatched earrings jiggling wildly against her chin.
“You know,” she continued to her not so slender friend, “when I have children I’m going to be able to tell if they’ve been dong drugs, because I have and I’ll know for certain…not like my parents who don’t have a clue!”
I looked up, they were my children’s age which meant their parents probably grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and I wondered why they thought their parents had grown up in a vacuum!
I felt like learning over and saying,
“Your parents know more than you think…”
“This is Camden, ” she stood up, “let’s get off here instead of Chalkwell, that way we can walk through the centre of town, it’s more exciting.”
We stayed on for Chalkwell and walked to our destination through as much excitement as two empty nesters in training can handle since…
…we were apparently never young and never had lives!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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