Happy New Year.

Strange how you know that life can be surprising and yet still be surprised when it is surprising.
Yesterday, I went to the post office to renew my road tax. It was a long queue, but it didn't matter, I wasn't feeling rushed. I stood behind an old man and we got talking. As the queue went down, he told me about why there had been the demise of the post offices through the powers that be deciding the post offices couldn't have a monopoly and so they lost their money making business to other shops, how the European Union were messing up our country, about the hungry thirties, his wife who lived in Trafford being bombed out and shot at and survived only to be killed earlier this year by the Health Service. And then his eyes welled up, pinking up, as he said that it would have been their 50th wedding anniversary in January, how much he missed her, missed her terribly and that she had died so many months, so many weeks, days and hours ago. And then he was called to the counter and I was called to another.


Later, I got chatting to a woman looking at a duvet cover in another shop. She said she didn't believe it was a single. It said on the label it was a single. We held it up between us. It was a king size. She said she often sat on the sofa and thought she'd alter something she'd bought, but never did. So she didn't get the king size duvet cover because she'd just sit on the sofa saying she should cut it in half and alter it but never would. She said, "All the best," as I left the shop.

And in Holland and Barrett the two girls serving and a young bloke were discussing what time they thought Morrisons would close. He didn't want to go and buy things on his own because he knew he'd get the wrong things or the wrong amount. He was very unsure. I bought nuts.

That's Chorlton for you on New Year's Eve. Did you see the full moon by the way?

I hope these people will be all right. I hope the year brings something good for them.

Happy New Year. And it's frosty and bright.