Sunday's spotlight - People watching

By guest blogger Pete

Some time ago now, Ruth introduced me into the wonders of FLICKR. I had heard of this but, being able to procrastinate well enough to represent my country in the 2012 Olympics, I had never gotten around to exploring it. Ruth is very persuasive and thus I finally entered this new world. I have on hard disc, quite literally, thousands of photos so I have already downloaded quite a few. My address is "flickr/com/photos/peter2010". The reason why it had to be 2010 is because another member called people had taken the suffix 2009. There's a lot of us Peters around!!

I have started my own group called "Cathedral & Church Flower Festivals" - please note that it is"&" and not "and". If you'd like to join my group you'd be very welcome. One of the aims behind the group is to give ideas to flower arrangers. Here endeth the commercial - please support our sponsors, etc.

One of our favourite pastimes when out walking or visiting a place is to people watch. Pam, my wife, is very good at building up imaginary situations - mostly happy - in which these folk find themselves. I'm more inclined to a} wonder at some of the weird clothes/"things" people wear and b} watch children play. They are in a world of their own and it's intriguing to try and work out what that imaginary world of theirs is. I taught for a number of years and often wondered where a child had wandered off to in their mind as they sat there with a blank look on his or her face.

We took Ruth to Louth yesterday. Louth is typical of a middle sized Lincolnshire market town - plenty of historical buildings and, what is becoming quite rare in this country now, independent shops. As we were leaving a cafe following a coffee break we chatted with another customer. She was a people watcher and a regular visitor to that cafe. She always tried to sit in the cafe's window seat so that she could get on with some watching. She said that she was amazed at the number of people who looked into the cafe but never noticed her.

Hope you like the people watching photos. (Editor's note - we are honored - as my dad very rarely takes photos of people!).

Happy Watching.