I know him fairly well for a neighbour and we talk quite often when we see each other and we also recently, with some other people from the street, spent the whole day smashing and clearing ice off our road.
However I was still a good five or six minutes away from my house and I didnt have that much material in which to talk to him about so I quickened my pace.
It was to no avail, as he is quick. I could hear him catching me but I daren't turn around for fear of having to engage in conversation. So as the tension cranked up and he could not have been more than a few feet behind me he turned off into the first entrance into our estate. 'Thank Christ' I thought now I have everted that situation.
Although I hadn't.
Because now I had the shorter route back to our road and he had the faster walking pace. So much faster infact that I was almost certain that he would be able to do his route in roughly the same time as it would take me to do mine and we would meet at the corner of the bottom of our street.
So I deflected of my normal route in favour of a slightly longer route in hope that this would bring me just behind him going up the road and I would get away with the whole situation. It wasn't even about not talking to him now, it was about the fact that quite obviously on two occasions I had opted out of the fastest route to my house in order to not have to walk side by side with this fellow.
As I was coming up the bottom of my road, from my diverted route, there he was. Heading straight for the corner of our street and would get there at exactly the same time that I would. I clocked him, he clocked me. We where pretty much starring at each other and I just started to laugh as I am awful at keeping a straight face.
"I was having a personal race against you then" I quickly made up.
"Yeah I walk fast" he beamed, "4 and a half miles an hour, I like to keep fit"
Jesus, I thought, out paced by a pensioner.
Lewis
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