Familiar yet Unknown

T minus 118

Every day I see her. Depending on which time my car reaches Long Crendon, depends on where along the road she is.

She is an older lady probably in her mid 60’s or 70’s. I would not know as we’ve never spoken. She is delivering the morning papers, day in day out, year in year out. In addition she picks up the litter on route, sometimes she’s chatting with a villager. Over the eleven years or so I have been travelling that way she has been a familiar part of my route as much as the crossroads, junctions, trees and pillar boxes that mark my way. On those rare occasions when she is not spotted the journey seems somewhat incomplete.
In the early years of my journey home there was another who I would see on my journey home through Stewkley. An elderly man who would be walking one way or another through the village. My home journey had a much more varied time frame and yet he would always be somewhere on the road. Those who know Stewkley, will tell you it is one of the longest villages in England (1.7 miles of continuous housing) and any time between 3:30pm and 6:00pm he would be there somewhere in the same faded green t-shirt and brown trousers. He didn’t always look in good health but walked nonetheless. About 4 years since I spotted him and something from that journey is missing.

Whenever I go on a run or a walk around Caldecotte, I am often likely to spot another. A shaven headed man running back and forth along a the road bridge near The Caldicotte Arms. Not as regularly encountered as the other two, but pretty often just the same. It must be some sort of fitness regime but it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day, so he must do it a lot. He was there this morning, but he has been there in the afternoons and evenings all year around.

Soon this will change – I imagine that the two of them who are still around will be there for many years to come, but I won’t. Maybe, I too am a nameless yet familiar part of someone’s daily routine and like the Stewkley man I will soon disappear.

I wonder what new familiarities await? What people unknown by name form a familiar part of your daily routines?

Caldecotte Arms viewed at Sunset