Human Relations

Thankfully the snow has melted and daylight is just beginning to increase as winter begins to give way to spring.

An early Saturday  morning walk to the local Sainsbury's is usually not a bad way of taking excercise and at the same time buying a few breakfast goodies including often a still hot, well warm anyway, from the oven, baguette. So it was this morning and the lack of crowds and thankfully lack of piped music was making the trip quite fun when suddenly an elderly couple  then shopping  in the same supermarket, began to have a quarrel involving shouting at each other. My immediate reaction was to forget half the things other than the baguette I had intended to pick up. But then I thought how sad to see that couple  argue so loudly in so public a place.

To argue from time to time and occasionally even with strangers in the vicinity seems almost to be art of the human condition so I have heard  and seen arguments in public places before. On one occasion  I recall a girl on an SWTrain on a Sunday morning, shouting into her mobile phone about being ditched presumably to her boyfriend  - impossible for anyone else in the carriage not to hear;  very occasionally, arguments about queuing at bus stops take place for all to see and hear although as an aside, London's buses have improved so much since we began to have an elected mayor, that such arguments are far rarer now than they once were.

However to argue so publicly and loudly in a large supermarket early on a Saturday morning when the shop is almost empty and  very quiet,  about something relatively trivial sounding, makes it impossible to ignore and seems unfortunate to me. Presumably the trivial but very loud carry-on is but the tip of a sad iceberg.