surprise reader, sniffing, poppy

The vastness of the internet and the opportunity of chance encounters always surprises me. It is a surprise and a pleasure to learn the other day that a neighbour who had no reason to look it up and who had certainly not heard of it through me, has come across Now's the time, by chance. You launch a balloon with a message and never know where it will land, far or near.

In the Pantiles farmers' market a fine, black haired retriever sniffs at cryovac wrapped beef and lamb joints on a butcher's stall with penetrating intelligence.

I visit a neighbour, a military man, who has been seriously ill for some months, and who yesterday celebrated his 80th birthday surrounded by his family. As he greets me, I notice that a poppy is pinned to the collar of his pyjamas in anticiption of Rememberance Sunday. A few years ago, a tabloid newspaper sent a reporter down from London to inverview him. The object was to profile an archetypal "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells", and I recall his pleasure with the double page spread which resulted. Disgusted or not, he is a man who knows who he is.