dither

Y'know?
I was thinking about Winston's sig earlier.
Oh dear, I thought it had said something about getting creative, I mis-read it.
My first thought had been " yeah right, me? Creative? if only."

I've always wanted to write in a journalistic kind of way. Not totally facts and figures etc., putting a little bit of me in there, in a creative diarist way? Is there such a thing?
The reason for this foray into introspection is something that happened when I went out shopping this morning.

If only I'd taken a notebook and pen. But would I have dared? Allow me to explain:



Sunday, today, would be like any other Sunday really, get out about elevenish. Go do some shopping and then just slob it for the rest of the day and so it was. Would be. I left home at about 11.30. The sun, high in a Simpson-sky was glorious, it was quite warm and I was still feeling pretty good about myself as I headed for the High Street. Now, living in a small village as I do, there isn't ever very much going on a Sunday morning/mid-day. Shoppers are thin on the ground and hardly any of the few shops that we have are be open anyway but something I was not prepared for awaited me as I walked along the High Street. An amazing sight, well okay, maybe not SO amazing. A small collection of motor-scooters but these weren't just modes of transport there were some serious Lambretta love affairs going on here. These things sparkled. Pictures, proper paint-jobs on some of the side panels.

Yes, we all know about old bikers. Fifty, and sixty, somethings, still riding around with their arses hanging out of their dirty unwashed denims with the obligatory beer-mat sewn into one of the legs.
And then there are the ones you see with their brand spanking new 750/1000 cc Triumphs, Nortons and the like, in their pristine leathers. Looking as though they just rode out of some dealerships showroom.
Guys fulfilling those teenage dreams, doing, having things they'd always wanted before life, and the wife, the mortgage and the ensuing family intervened. But is there such a thing as old mods? I wondered. A new wave perhaps. Who knows?

And what if?... What if, I'd had a notebook and pen to hand? It occurs to me as I type that there was no array of rear-view mirrors and no pieces of fluff hoisted high above the back wheel.

I imagined the scene, of what might have been, as I walked to my local Aldi's:

Studying the Lambbos, noting model-names, colours, engine sizes etc. Having one of those guys walk up up to me asking who I was and what the hell was I doing and how I might respond to that. Chatting with Dave Fred Mick and Pete whoever, about the loves of their lives, their passions and those things are not cheap nowadays. I'd even thought up a name for my imagined ...... dare I call it a piece? Observation, commentary whatever. A Lambretta convention is what I'd had in mind. But where WERE those guys? As I walked back through town an hour later, along the quiet High Street, the bikes still stood there as though they'd been deserted.

Life eh?