Across the pond

Just after I moved into this flat last November I saw a man I know walk past the house. I was in my dressing gown at the time, otherwise I would have run out and greeted him. It has happened several times since then, but, always when I was on the phone, composing a blog on my computer, or entertaining visitors. It has annoyed me, because one of things I like to do in my retirement is to look up old friends and discover whether we still have anything to say to each other, etc.

It happened again this morning, when I was again in my dressing gown and at 11 AM. But my stiff upper lip had not woken up, so, this time, I opened the window, and yelled ‘Hello’. He turned towards me, but with no look of recognition. I quickly established that he was not the man I thought he was.

Acute embarrassment.

But it stirred me to action. I googled him. The first item was a newspaper article from November 2009, which told me he was dead. There was no photo so I could not gauge just how much like the man who walks down my street he was.

That’s not quite the end of the story. But I have to do a bit more research to get it right. And also to write a short blog about him. So it might be some time before I write Part Two, because not everything you want to know can be found on the web.