Grandma was sitting on her tiny sofa, enjoying her mid-morning mug of coffee, wondering for the umpteenth time, just what she was going to do.
She was bored and fed up with being at home. It was a very nice home and she really did love it but......She spent so many hours on her own and she had no one to talk to and she loved to talk and hear others talk to her. You never quite knew what they were going to say next. They might make you laugh or cry or well, whatever. Yes, she loved to talk and listen and now there was no-one to talk to.
Her grandchildren talked to her when they visited, or over the telephone, or even via Skype, but they couldn't do that every day. Her sister hated the telephone, so she never talked to her. True, she wrote the most beautiful letters, full of news and funny comments overheard out shopping or at the hairdresser's salon . She saved up all her scraps of news, tales and interesting tit-bits and, once a month she would write a long, amusing letter to her younger sister. There would be a letter written back and then another long month without a word between them.
"Oh dear, drat, bother and drat again! sighed Grandma.
Grandma finished her coffee, got up from her sofa and put the empty mug into her dishwasher. She would go out shopping and find somebody to talk to.
"I know" said Grandma, buttoning up her jacket, pulling on her galoshes and, with leather gloves to hand, opened up her front door, turned the lock in the key and hurried down to path to her green front gate.
"I'll go and visit Mr. Patel and buy a newspaper and a bunch of those white daisies, he was selling yesterday. I'm bound to find somebody in his shop to talk to, and I can talk to Mr. Patel too."
Mr. Patel's shop was very full and Mr. Patel so busy he didn't have time to stop and talk to any of his customers. He could only ask them what they wanted to buy, and tell them how much it was going to cost them, when he totted up all their purchases on his shiny til, asked them for the amount and say "thank you sir, or thank you madam" when he gave them their change. He was kept so busy directing people to where the soap powder was, where the tinned tomatoe were, and where this, that and everything else was, that his head was spinning. Luckily, at that point, his young assistant came in from his lunch break and Mr. Patel waved a farewell and stepped through the stripey curtain into the dark cool recess beyond the shop, and he was seen no more of the lunch time hour.
Grandma had been at the back of a very long queue, so she never managed to speak to Mr. Patel and,not knowing Mr. Patel's assistant, she only spoke to say "thank you, I'll have this newspaper and these daisies, and how much do I owe you, and thank you" for her change. Not even "goodbye" for the young assistant was by now in deep conversation with an anxious shopper, keen to buy the best Risotto rice in Mr. Patel's shop, so neither heard or saw Grandma as she opened the door and slipped out into the bright sunshine and the busy street, where the bright red buses were chasing eavh other up and down the highway.
"Oh dear!" sighed Grandma, turning to her right and stepping out lightly towards the park.
"I'm sure to find somebody to talk to there. A friendly young Mum watching her children on the roundabout, or pushing her child's pushchair by the lake, looking at the ducks. Perhaps I could help them throw their bread crusts to the hungry waterfowl.....or just watch them from the park bench, sitting besides another onlooke?!"
"We'll chat about this and that, discuss the weather, their day's programme and what I'm doing today!!" Grandma considered this to be a good plan and proceeded to reach the park but "oh dear me, it's raining" wailed Grandma and turned away from the park gate, retracing her footsteps to reach the library, she had just passed on her flight to the park
