Part of my daily pandemic routine involves getting up on a normal working day and, after feeding the two demanding young cats that are my new masters, I go for a three-mile walk. This happens at roughly 6am in the morning when most sane people are asleep in their warm beds dreaming of a time when the world isn’t being ravaged by a nasty virus.
In the winter months a walk can be an unpleasant experience; it is dark, cold and sometimes pouring with rain. You may ask what the appeal of subjecting myself to the cold and hostile elements of Manchester at 6am in January can be.
I ask myself the very same question.
However, at that time of day, whether it is January or March, it is really peaceful. There are very few cars and people around and the streets are calm and quiet. I remember that I used to love walking the streets doing a morning paper round as a kid for exactly the same reason.
I can walk along, drift into my own little world and contemplate life, the universe and everything, while at the same time getting some exercise. Sometimes I am accompanied by Mrs PM, other times I am on my own with just my iPod for company.
It is blissful, even when it is raining.
There is one downside though and try as I might, I find that I cannot avoid it.
I sometimes feel like I am a Peeping Tom.
Okay, I can imagine that you are considering clicking the little X in the corner of your browser window now and the one thought that is running through your head is “I didn’t know that this man was such a bloody pervert!” and imagine me creeping up to people’s houses to peer into their window with a lecherous and leering look on my grinning face.
You are 100% wrong.
Allow me to explain and hopefully put your mind at rest. As I walk along the street in the darkness of a cold, winter morning, I find my gaze drifting towards houses and seeing no lights in most of them because people are in bed. Sometimes, however, I see the odd bedroom light on. On other occasions, people are up and about and downstairs lights are on.
In almost all cases, the people concerned value their privacy and keep their blinds, shutters or curtains closed.
Sadly, there are those people – let’s call them exhibitionists – who want to let everybody outside know exactly what they are doing. These people open their curtains, blinds or whatever, switch on their lights and then, for reasons I have yet to fathom, do whatever they need to do in full view of anybody who happened to be walking outside their house.
I am very paranoid about allowing people to stare into my house when it is dark outside. My curtains and shutters are closed as soon as the sun sinks behind the horizon and they remain so until I am fully dressed and sun has popped up again.
The last thing I want to see is a person – any person – gazing into my house as I go about my business.
Now I can imagine another thought going through your head dear reader – “What on Earth are you doing in your house that you don’t want people to see?”
The answer is “Nothing – of course!” What do you think I am? I am just a normal geezer and I am nothing like this bloke or any of the people he spies on:
Call me weird if you like but I like my privacy.
And this is why, when I see these people opening themselves to the world for all to see at 6am on a dark winter morning, I think they are peculiar.
Why would you do that?
And I can now guess that thinking – “Well, Peeping Tom, you don’t HAVE to look.”
And you would be right (except for calling me Peeping Tom). I don’t have to look but I find my eyes subconsciously drawn to any light source at that time of the morning. I’m not even aware that I am doing it until see somebody eating his breakfast staring back at me.
In my head, I am miles away on a voyage through my imagination thinking about budding novels about vampires, aliens and space wars. The last thing I want to see is an old bloke eating his cornflakes in his pyjamas.
When this happens, I have a deep urge to march up to his window and scream “Shut your bloody curtains, man! Nobody wants see you chomping on your toast in your jim-jams you bloody weirdo!”
Of course, I don’t do that and you will be pleased to know that I avert my eyes from these exhibitionists as quickly as possible.
They can ruin my walk. I am brought crashing back to reality, away from the space opera in my head and as I continue, I have to start again and expunge the image of the old so and so from my brain, lest it remain there and ruin my creativity.
Thankfully, it is now March and as I take my walks, my eyes can be drawn towards the rising sun and the wonderful dawns that appear instead of electric lights showing people getting dressed.
They are much more wonderful as you can see here from a photo taken late last week.
4 comments:
That is a spectacular dawn - ours are much gentler.
Seeing someone eating breakfast I could cope with. One of our neighbours (now deceased) used to do his nude exercises in his bedroom, with the curtains wide open. Sadly his bedroom window is in direct line with our kitchen window. NOT what I wanted to see while I got my first cuppa of the day.
I also close my curtains and blinds as soon as the sun goes down and don't open up until it is properly daylight. I wonder if these "open everything" people realise that they can be seen. Do they ever venture outside in the dark hours themselves?
Hi EC,
It's a rare dawn at this time of the year. If the sky is clear or has just a few clouds we can get some really good sunrises. Mostly though it's cloudy and grey and we see nothing.
Urrgh! Old men doing nude exercises is something you don't want to see at any time.
:o)
Cheers
PM
Hi River,
I am sure they do. I've seen them gawping back at me - presumably they just want to see what is going on and that I can cope with if they are fully clothed and not showing everything they have.
:o)
Cheers
PM
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