Oh, that was random.

Yesterday afternoon turned out to be random. Unusual things happened for No Reason At All.

Late afternoon, we took the children to the park at Aberfeldy. As usual, we took the long way round and as usual we were stopped by the police as the road was closed while the wind turbines were moved.
Except the policeman moonwalked to the car to tell us. Expertly.

"Are you Robocop?" I asked then felt instantly uncool as I probably got the wrong character.
"No Ma'am, I am Daffy Duck".

The children were agog but laughed at Daffy Duck the policeman.

We were allowed through as the turbines had not yet arrived so Daffy Duck waved us off with a little dance. We instantly loved him.
His fellow officer drove ahead on his bike so we had a police escort and felt Terribly Important like princesses.

The park was lovely, and quite busy. A little girl had brought an army of teddies and had placed some of them on the grass. They waited patiently while the other teddies had a go on the swings. She was singing softly to them. I noticed that one of her pandas had a biscuit in it's paw.

I left the children with The Farmer and went up to the Water Mill to see the latest exhibition - this month it was a photographic exhibition by David Peat. There were lots of photos of couples kissing in Parisian alleyways, reminiscent of Robert Doisneau.
They get off with it in Paris, I thought. If I went and snogged The Farmer in Aberfeldy Square, it would raise an eyebrow or purse a lip.

There was a photograph of a person, possibly a man, who had covered his head with two knitted gloves. He had lost a shoe and was sitting in a puddle. The photograph reeked of despair.

A jolly party of Glaswegians bounced in at that point and joked loudly to one another about their afternoon and the intimacy of the moment was changed. I went back to join my family.

We went back across the bridge for something to eat. We sat outside in the sun and ignored the fog of midges then a helicopter landed in the field beside the hotel.

A fat red squirrel lurked in a birch tree.

I cut my lip on my pudding.
It was a heavenly creme brulee with a thick shell of browned sugar. A large shard sliced my top lip open just as Mine Host came to see if everything was ok.

"Shall I bring you a plaster ?" he asked, helpfully.
"Moomph", I replied from under a tissue.
"Duct tape?"
He was warming to the theme.
"Duct tape and a bin bag for your head?"
"Naw, you are fine thanks, son. I am trying to give all that up"

Ever the optimist, The Farmer pointed out that it was not everywhere that you got a pudding and free Paris Pout. "You have an Angelina Jolie lip now".
"I look like a bloody budgie and well you know it".

Lip, children, dog, Farmer and I headed home. It really had been a good afternoon.

We were almost a mile from home and came across two elderly ladies sitting at the side of the road. Their car driven up the bank.

We stopped to ask if they were ok.

"We have a flask and were watching the sun on the hills. It is lovely. We were visiting Betty's sister. She is in hospital, you know, but she is fine. We came the long road back, you know, by the back roads and if we had broken down we would be terribly pleased to see you as there is nothing here. Nobody."
This is an abridged copy of her conversation.

She said all this in about thirty seconds. I felt that I had full knowledge of her entire life, cat's name, shoe size and the contents of her bathroom cabinet.

Our new Best Friend, Betty, merely did a 'chin chin' gesture with her flask cup.

I loved them instantly.

I loved the dancing policeman, the helicopter, the fat squirrel, fat lip, the sun, the Farmer, Betty and her picnic, our exhausted children and our afternoon in Aberfeldy.

It was Random.