Walking Friends ~~ a poem with prose

A walk around the block

[Mrs. Jim, KP, and Billy walking in their neighborhood]

The wife and I love to travel.  Europe is our favorite

but we've been to many, many places in this world. 

Most of our holiday spending for the last four years

has involved being in London to visit our grand-

daughters, BP and KP, now aged 16 and almost five.

We've traveled out from their home, taking day

and weekend trips and a couple of cruises to

the Baltic and Black Seas (link1, link2).

[Our little London family has no car so we are relegated

to public transportation or walking to get around.]

On one of these walks I crossed paths with

the loveliest little older couple.  They were

always walking, mostly around the long block

we all seemed to live on.  I'd say that would be

over a half mile and perhaps closer to a mile.

That was very long for them, I would often

see the lady bending down with hands almost to

the sidewalk.  I thought she was short of breath.

But later I found it was that and also a

sort of stretching exercise for her.

One day I saw them stopped near a bench

and on the bench were three sacks of groceries. 

It turned that the man was carrying, or trying

to carry, all three of them.  They had been to

the grocery store across Wellington St,

which was a part of their regular walk. 

The gentleman would not let me carry these

packages to their flat.  This, even though he

trusted me somewhat from our regular farmer's

greeting as we passed those many times. 

Later, after several more times of tip of the hat

greetings, I would stop for a small chat with him 

while his wife did her bending down thing.

 [KP loves to walk in the park, kicking leaves

or rustling the last summer grasses, here still

standing in October.  She likes the playground

part and the places where she can run too.]

Had I my car I would have offered then an

escape from the neighborhood, perhaps taking

them to the park.  But they cannot walk that

far and I wouldn't want to escort them on

the Tube or a bus for fear of overstepping

all of our limited senior navigation capabilities.

We could have walked perhaps another short block

from the grocery store to this lovely gelato place. 

The Gelato Mio is one of KP's and my favorite places

to go.  Fill your card with British Pound punches

and you'll have a free cone. 

We've done that lot's of times, KP and I.

There will be a day, perhaps on our visit this spring,

when the bench will be empty.  No groceries nor

the elderly couple, that is the way this life goes. 

One other thing, they are just a little older than I am.

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Photo and Poem  Copyright © 2013 and 2014 Jimmiehov. All Rights Reserved

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I am linked today with the Real Toads, Friday Challenge, Persons of Interest

2017 Notes:

 - 1.  Now that the kids are back here in the Houston area to stay the picture would be Mrs. Jim, KP, me, walking KP to and/or from school. Not every day, some are scheduled. Other days for when her parents cannot. If in the mornings then Mrs. Jim and I continue walking for 30 minutes or more. And KP is older now, we don't hold hands anymore.
 - 2.  Today, Tuesday, January 17, 2017, I've linked again with the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Tuesday Challenge (a post anything day, old or new--Facebook prompted me to repost this one).  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-tuesday-platform_17.html  

 - 3.  At today's Garden post (linked above), Kerry O'Conner wrote of poems being similar to trees in that if shared they are like trees being planted.  How they grow or survive is similar to the after steps taken.