Sometimes I think I do live in a kind of rural pantomime.
This morning the RFWF roared past the cottage in his red landrover
He was leaning out of the window with a big grin and looked remarkably like Robert Newton from Treasure Island
"I have found you a ram!" he called out
( I wouldn't have been surprised if he would have added
"me hearties!!!" whilst waving his cutlass out of the window.
I would love to be a "bit of a character"
Not "mad enough to be termed an eccentric"
But mad enough to be seen as "interesting,"
and different.
It will never happen because I think I am just too bland
But I am working on it.
Years ago, when I was a bank clerk, I recall serving a rather unkempt lady who we the Nat West Bank staff helpfully described as "nutty as Marathon bar"
(It was renamed Snickers years later btw)
I remember her withdrawing a couple of hundred pounds from her account, which she carefully counted in front of me and then , with slow deliberation, she lifted her blouse and stuffed the 40 five pound notes around the circumference of her bra
As she finished she suddenly thought of something , then retrieving one crumpled five pound note she asked me for one bag of mixed silver
"Do you know where I am going to put that?" she cackled
"I hesitate to ask" I remember saying
And with a smile she started to feed the coins into a Remembrance collection tin on the bank's counter
After an age, she took all of the plastic poppies out of the tray and went around the bank presenting all of the waiting customers and staff with a flower each.
Eccentric or mentally ill?
who knows..
But I recall she made for a more interesting morning on a drab Welsh morning in Rhyl in 1980