Following two days of having rather a lot of time on my hands, I’ve come to the conclusion that time is the great divide. As opposed to North / South. Or anything else for that matter. Well time and manners, maybe. It may be the case that there are more people in the North who either have, or are willing to make, time for each other. No doubt there are extensive social, geographic and economic studies on the subject, and I would cite some here, if I only had the time to look for them. Being down South, I haven’t of course. But, a culture of calling people ‘love’ or ‘ducky’ rather than employing every possible technique to avoid eye contact aside, I’m pretty sure time, and the giving of it, rather than geography alone, is what separates.

Anyway, my point is, that with enforced spare time due to day-long hospital appointments, I have found it easy to make time for conversations, smiles and generally the sort of engagement with random strangers of which, had I been on the receiving end not too long ago, would have had me muttering about how strange people are whilst hurrying busily and importantly in the opposite direction. It turns out that most people aren’t as antisocial as me, and as a result I have had a series of rewarding, hilarious, supportive and bizarre conversations with as diverse a group of people I could ever hope to meet. I have made a grown man cry tears of happiness (although to be fair he did look as if this might be quite a common occurrence), reassured a petrified woman, chatted to two people who would quite possibly have spoken to no one else that day, and laughed, hugged, sat and walked with people I had never met before and probably won’t again. 

And you know what? Making eye contact with random strangers – didn’t kill me. Smiling at people – not fatal either. Speaking to people who I’ve never met before – didn’t get me sectioned. A small amount of appropriate physical contact (I mean, let’s not go overboard on the geography point, I’m still British) –  I’d go so far as to say this was actually enjoyable. Plus I’ve always got antiseptic wipes in my bag at the moment, so it didn’t feel too risky.

Thinking about it, whilst I was busy magnanimously making time for all those people, and feeling pretty good about my generosity in doing so, they all made time for me, and there were really quite a lot of them. So I think ended up with the long straw there. 

And not a single one of those people was anywhere even approaching the Watford Gap.