A Friendly Old Man

The sun is out today, hurrah!

We took the long way to the library late this morning (we go there on as many days as we can because it is warm, and to converse on gas and electric at the flat), taking pictures of the swans and assortment of birds in the river on the way. We passed a friendly older gentlemen, probably in his late 60's, out walking his dog, who spoke with a wonderful accent.

It was a rare day, we had our sunglasses on, shielding our eyes from both the sun, and the people, and we were exuding pleasantness, for the time being. These are the days strangers like to approach us.

He commented on our taking pictures of the swans and directed us to a path we have never taken before, saying that there was a heron in a tree by a pond we might like to photography. We took the path he suggested and got some great shots of a small pond, with ducks, pigeons and seagulls standing on the barely frozen water.

On our walk back we passed him again. He scolded us for wearing headphones, saying we should be listening to nature. He inquired as to whether or not we'd seen the heron, we reported we had not. He offered to show us and so we followed him down the paved walkway. He told us he is from East London, followed by "You American or something?" then laughed and repeated himself, amused by the way he had constructed the sentence. He pointed across the pond to a tree, where a heron sat in a tree, and told us how it dives into the water to eat fish, which today it would not be able to do because of the frozen state of the pond, and how it's a greedy bird, and not a lot of locals like the heron.

We told him there was no way our camera would be able to take a good picture that far away, he mimicked a zoom feature with his hands and eye, and we held up our small quick shot camera to show him, telling him the zoom isn't very good. He replied "I though Americans always had the best" and chuckled, we grinned at him, with nothing else to say. He called for his dog and we went our separate ways. As we completed our walk to the library we pondered the smaller perceptions people might have of Americans, despite knowing full well the general and overall dislike the world has for the country we call home.