The batty old lady...

I must tell you about the batty old lady... I have no idea who she is, but I encounter her every now and again by the traffic lights as I cross Berkeley Street. Like me, she seems to spend half of her life crossing that road. She always wears royal blue and pushes a shopping trolley. She has a couple of warts and a fairly impressive beard for a woman! She does, however, have very white teeth!! They may be false of course, but I don't like to stare at her mouth in order to work it out.

She stands shuffling nervously on the spot, looking helplessly at the traffic for a while. This is the point where you feel the need to shoot her a reassuring/slightly nervous smile - FATAL. As soon as you make eye-contact, her eyebrows start a kind of boogie dance with each other, her eyes get a bit misty and she starts to mumble in Old ladesian, a baffling language that one cannot fathom without a word of knowledge from the Lord.

I cough nervously and answer with one of the 'safe answers', which is usually something like "er...yes", "mmm", or "oh RIGHT!" (with enthusiasm) or even a selective "ahhhh". It is then that I realise that I have said "ah that's good" after she has said "I nearly got knocked down here the other week you know." Once again I have opened my mouth to replace the foot!

Today she was telling me that (again) she nearly got knocked down on that side of the road which "wasn't good". The trouble was that last time she'd nearly got knocked down on the other side of the road - bless her! She said that some of the drivers' eyes "weren't good you see". I controlled the tempting urge to point out that they wouldn't be driving if this was the case but she was off on another strand by this point. After 2-3 minutes I was slightly puzzled that the lights hadn't changed and she said "can you push the button my love?" UGH. Another girl kindly pressed it (I didn't realise that she hadn't done it!!) and the old lady mumbled "Ah that might help that might". Yes.

We crossed the road and she was a bit confused that I walked the other way, so walked off chattering away to the world in general. This happens most times that I see her... she is quite sweet really! And amusing...