Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

Not a chance that I could pick just one random encounter with a stranger. I have a ‘stranger’ face. An invisible tattoo on my forehead that says “Talk to me ‘

My family and friends can see a random encounter as it approaches, they melt away and feign deep interest in things some distance away. Leaving me alone. I like to think they are a safe distance away.

Not all strangers are strange, many have been lovely. How do I  even define ‘positive’ to encounters with strangers. Mostly they are benign.The few that have turned out not so well have been escapable.

Last weekend’s random encounter was with a holidaymaker moving into his Airbnb which was over a Vegan cafe. I am no expert on Veganism or the etiquette of holidaying above a Vegan Cafe. But my ‘ Stranger-magnet’ face marked me out as the woman to discuss his moral dilemma with. Should he put his honey-flavoured yogurt in the fridge as the bees would most certainly have been trafficked. Looking at his box of groceries, dairy goods and bacon, trafficked bees seemed to be the least of his problems. Wisdom and past experience made me cautious* Luckily the yogurt was Greek. There was zero chance that the honey in the yogurt was from wild bees living in an Olive Grove but that was what I focussed on while reassuring him that his holiday food would not cause a crisis in the North Cornwall Vegan community

* I am cautious because one of my stranger encounters was with a 90-year-old man who was mourning his wife, and their inability to have children. On a windswept cliff, in an attempt to move the conversation on, I asked him how they knew it was her who could not have children. ( This sounds wrong on many levels but not as wrong as it might seem. It was a second marriage I suppose I was hoping there was a child from his first marriage)

His sobbing stopped and he turned his reddened, rheumy old eyes to me and asked what I meant. I explained that men can also be infertile.

He looked bewildered and then sad again. They had just accepted and had never been tested. All I had managed to achieve was adding doubt to his long-held narrative. Not my finest hour.