I’ve mentioned sketch books and notebooks before, and how I envy people who keep them, and how often they are works of art even if they are full of word pictures not sketches. I have tried on many occasions to carry a notebook but dreadful handwriting, forgetting to have a writing implement even if I’ve remembered the notebook means that my observations and inspirations fall through the holes in my mental in-tray.
I do try, where possible to write notes on my phone, and today something caught my eye as I was walking into town to meet daughter. It was a small scene, but somehow very vivid. There’s nothing of apparent interest in it but at that moment there was enough for me to stop by the stone wall beyond the bus stop, whip out my phone and jot:
A small snapshot: a small bus shelter open at one side: there are three people, a small man with braces over an un-ironed white shirt, blue jeans turned up at the bottoms and brown boots. There’s a large untidy woman, red-faced, grey shoulder-length greasy hair which lifts in the light sea breeze. She’s wearing a red cardigan stretched over a white blouse, a patterned blue skirt and white sandals on her bare feet. A small boy of about four, is climbing silently on and off the seats between them. None looked at, spoke to or paid any attention to the others. A bus has pulled up noisily with a hiss of brakes, as I walk by them, none look at it or the few people getting off,. One of the descending passengers has a fold-up pushchair, but I’ve walked past before i see if a child gets off after her.
This probably won’t come to anything, but maybe a part of it will. The middle-aged woman had an interesting face, focused and concentrating on something – looking for the next bus to arrive, catching sight of someone she knew, planning something? Obviously I have no idea. The small grey-haired man with slightly lop-sided glasses who may have been organising some carrier bags tucked under the narrow bench in the bus-shelter, looked as if his clothes, though crumpled were clean and freshly washed – where was he going when he got on the bus he was waiting for? And the small boy, quietly entertaining himself by clambering on and off the seats, was he a grandson of either or both?
These people may never appear in something I write, but maybe one or part of one of them might.
Lois Elsden 