rooftop fish habit

Roof top confrontation.

At the Pantiles farmers' market an old couple are ahead of me in the queue. They are very old. The old lady is frail as a leaf. They buy freely and enthuse about the display. "I love fish," says the old lady and her face lights up with the declaration. She is apologising for taking so long.  She has a slight French accent.

"You are walking on the wrong side of the road"" says a neighbour who lives on the opposite side of the road from me. I wonder if he is being territorial. Or is he a man so rooted in habit that he cannot believe that anyone would want to walk on different sides of the road on different days or at different times? I incline towards the latter explanation, but  give some thought to the oddness that encroaching age brings to our preferences. "He is very set in his ways," is an observation you often hear as a reason for compulsive behaviour of one sort or another. It is an excuse I am beginning to understand  and an attitude I am increasingly ready to forgive in others. Even, I have to admit, in myself.