I walk to and from work every day; a good 40 minute march.  It’s a great way to wake up on a dark winter’s morning when getting out of bed is an effort and your bowl of porridge hasn’t quite started to kick in.   I stick my earplugs in and listen to one of 4 Podcasts.  BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, BBC 4’s Saturday Live, BBC 4’s Mid-week or Helen and Olly’s Answermethispodcast.com.  The latter tempers the former and is not for sensitive ears.

As you would expect, I pass the same people day after day and ponder their being:  what are they like?  Do they have a partner?  Where do they work?  Why are they wearing that? Gosh I love their dog, maybe I’ll stop them so I can stroke it….

I decided to draw a few of the characters to give you a flavour – I recently  showed the drawings to a friend who walks the same route, albeit a little earlier than me.  She recognised most of the people, so I’m satisfied that I’ve managed to capture them fairly accurately.  She even shared one or two of her own commuter people. Now she texts me in the morning to say…hey, I passed ‘Greggs Man’, and I respond to say ‘I think I passed red-headed-duvet-jacket lady’!

So the next couple of posts are just sketches (no polishing) of some of the… <sings> “people that I meet when I’m walking down the street…they’re the people that I meet….each day!” (Sesame Street, People in your Neighbourhood)