Amazing how the mind works to bring us people we need to meet.

On my social media site someone offered  a self-drive petrol  mower for £85. My current mower I have had for about six years now and I’ve abused it so much that it is finally complaining, spluttering, going at variable speeds and I suspect that if I take it back to my wonderful repair agents in Kilmersdon they will shake their heads and give me a strange look.

For the new one I had to go along to a place near the American Gardens and the University of Bath which is situated near the Avon river and is in beautiful surrounds.  When I entered the property of the seller it was like going into Spain. Everything had been transformed and had my camera been working I would have asked to take one or two photographs.

The lady had been born in Burma but moved to London where she worked as an  opthalmist.

However first things first,  Apart from its general condition of the bodywork,  there are one or two things that you need to look for in a mower when buying it. First of all the condition of the blades and secondly the sound of the motor when it is turned on. If it sounds like it is ‘master of all it surveys’  and it probably has not been abused.

To my delight the mower was a smaller narrower variety and certainly less heavy so is for light work only which suits my changing requirements as a gardener to because being in my 80s I cannot throw myself around as I did in earlier years.

The sound was good and I told her that I thought it had not been used much and also used on fairly light areas and this she confirmed.  So I paid my £85 and we had a deal.

I then asked her what she had done when she was in London and she told me.  Optometrists are Licensed to practice optometry, which primarily involves performing eye exams and vision tests, prescribing and dispensing corrective lenses, detecting certain abnormalities, and prescribing medications for certain eye diseases.

She said that she had got out of this profession and number of years ago because it was going downhill and she could no longer take pride in it. She loved the job which she did for seven years which involved making a difference to other people in terms of quality of eyesight but eventually became a disillusioned

She said that the laws have changed and now anyone is allowed to advertise services for those needing sight correction and that of course includes eyeglasses. They do not need any particular qualifications. She describes how she sees people on TV and squirms when she sees that they don’t have the right glasses or the right fitting.

She says that no one has a symmetrical face and the differences can be as much as 2 millimeters hence the need for additional measurements to those performed by an optician.

if you’re going to do the best for someone you need to spend the money and get the measurements of the face in some detail. She says that you can spend tens of pounds whereas her services involved the spending of hundreds of pounds,  but this was worth it because ‘your eyes are your most precious organ’, or one of them anyway, and without correct eyesight you cannot function normally.

She says that people lavish more time and energy on their mobile phones and the cameras attached rather than their eyesight. She says that the National Health Service used to subsidize eye glasses more than they do now so the emphasis is on profitability. How are the public to know that there’ll be given a  professional service.

As I’m about to replace my glasses which includes varifocals, this certainly struck home. However what gave me the greatest pleasure was finding a woman in control of her environment who wasn’t afraid to speak her truth but with such joy and positivity it was a pleasure to hear.

I drove away with a warm glow in my heart having met a real live vibrant person. And blazing on the front of a very grand mansion was the motto Festina Lente which means make haste slowly which is often interpreted as a call for a balanced approach, urging diligence without rushing or procrastination.

On now to the Dundas Aqueduct which as locals will know is part of the canal system where trains, the river Avon, a canal, and a road all intersect. I absolutely love being there and without doing anything special you can go back to the 19th century where humans reign supreme.

I talked to a very lively lady, quite eccentric and loud, who had a dog with a beautiful temperament and fur to match and she said she had been without a partner since 2018 but loved herself and knew that she was a beautiful being. I loved such a self assertive statement which was given with a greatest of humor and humility.

She was on the way to inspect a canal boat of a friend who was going to transport it somewhere else. We immediately hit it off and I said that for some people it’s better to marry the universe and behave as if every one was your partner or shall we say part of your consciousness. She said she always had the very strong feeling of being guided.

She says that as a single person she does miss sharing with people but that she was still friends with all her previous partners. I wound her up a little bit by saying that if  a man was insecure she would make them a little bit more insecure and she agreed this with a laugh.

We met someone else who was walking with sticks and evidently she had had a second knee replacement and I thought she was doing quite well. W said the body takes time to heal and she said that this was only the eighth day post operative where upon I realized what wonderful progress she was making. I considered that a sense of humour and enjoyment in life contributed significantly to the amount of healing that she was experiencing.

We also attended the canal by the restaurant and ordered coffee etc.  While we were there two boys entered and ordered a sandwich and a drink. One of them waved £10 note around thinking when that would be sufficient but when they were asked for money they realized that they didn’t have enough to pay. I was quite happy to make up the difference between the £10 and the bill but before I could make an offer they scuffled away and cancelled the order. They were about 13 years of age I would guess.

On the other hand, it was a good idea that I did not make my offer because may be they had to go through this to learn about transactions in the modern world. I mentioned this to the server and she looked at me blankly. I suppose taking up the cudgels on behalf of two strangers is a bit unusual but anyway I said it.

Another splendid day with full of experiences, I couldn’t have made it up and I these events reinforce my belief that we are human beings and not human doings. Do children plan their playtime in advance? Go out there, see what happens, and you will find indeed that ‘all the world is a stage’.