Being a Nosy Adam...

...why should Parker have the monopoly on nosiness?

I was taking Josh the dog to the park the other morning when I noticed a red ribbon on a neighbour’s hedge. It made me think about Joanne Harris and her red ribbons in Blackberry Wine. I wondered if it could be some sort of a sign, a talisman. This gave me an idea for a story so I scribbled it into my notebook.

Further down our road there was a small group of people pointing at something out of my line of vision. No self-respecting Nosy Adam could have walked on by, so we made a detour to watch a large digger turn a perfectly good house into a pile of bricks. This was to make way for a road and houses in the backlands but what fascinated me were gardens that I had never seen before. There were bushes, trees, an old fashioned garden shed... or was it a Wendy House where generations of children had played or maybe it was a bolthole for Dad with a radio and cans of beer or better still for Mum with a mug of coffee and her mobile phone. Another idea and I was scribbling in my notebook again.

Josh was pulling at his lead. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be going to the park?’ he said. (OK, so he didn’t actually say it.) We resumed our walk. A cat who was watching Josh from the top of a fence, didn’t know that dogs can’t climb. She panicked. She lost her balance. A pair of claws grappled and disappeared down the back of the fence, followed by a clatter, a hiss, a meow. The Nosy Adam in me wanted to go and investigate but I knew that it would only make things worse so I jotted it down in my notebook.

The red ribbon was still caught on the hedge when we returned from the park. I knew that red ribbons have something to do with charity. The Internet said that it is the symbol of the World Aids Campaign. They are calling for nominations for the 2010 Red Ribbon Award and the closing date is 28th February. Well there’s a coincidence, I thought, bearing in mind last week’s blog post and I began to type this post...

But when I looked up the link for the Red Ribbon Award I was surprised to see that there is a Burgundy Ribbon for Amyloidosis Awareness... come to think of it that ribbon on the hedge was kind of a burgundy red and I have a husband who suffers from Amyloidosis. So it’s not a coincidence. It’s synchronicity. I started out writing about how being nosy gives you ideas for creative writing and now I’m reading a website about raising awareness of Amyloidosis as early diagnosis can save lives, I’m planning how I can get involved and I’m right back with my last week’s blog post about coincidence versus synchronicity. Isn’t life strange?