Post by MikePost by J. P. Gilliver (John)Post by Mike‘But Olwen, it got a car charger!’
Although I don't really like Olwen, I really enjoyed her telling Pat to
stop trying to organise her life. I fear it'll have gone in one ear and
out the other though.
I think Olwen wants to live her own life and this does not entail any
help/interference from Pat in any form, physical, financial or moral; so
Pat ‘Butt Out’!
Last night we were dining in a restaurant in Southampton Street in
London. Across the road a reasonably cleanly dressed lady of
indeterminate age (between 50 and 70 I would guess) settled down to read
the paper and had a shopping trolley adjacent. From restaurant staff we
were advised that she has been there regularly (and presumably
throughout the night) since September. During the hour we watched a
couple of other male street residents spoke to her. One brought a
collection of flattened cardboard boxes (no doubt from shops in adjacent
Covent Garden) and he put one down to sit on (she had some thick
cushions of some description). This one is also a regular we gather.
Both were cleaner / tidier than some of the others.
More generally there seem to be more street residents in London than was
the case, so I can only assume that under Boris support for such people
has been withdrawn - a few years ago they were almost non-existent.
My wife would have loved to know why she was there - not to help but
more to understand.
We have had back story from Olwen - and to my mind it sounded as though
she was responsible for her own downfall and can neither use her
undoubted intelligence to work out when to control her outpourings or to
gracefully accept assistance when provided. So is this really some form
of mental illness or simply an unwillingness to conform to societal
norms (and perhaps those two descriptions are simply different names for
the same problem?)?
--
Kosmo Richard W
www.travelswmw.whitnet.uk
https://tinyurl.com/KRWpics