Two things that are useful to know: litter and initials
Litter
In the pandemic I got fed up with the litter in the park and on the road leading up to it. Also, I realised there was a simple fix: just pick it up. So I bought myself a litter picker and got on with it. Sometimes I write about that, because I often litter pick while I walk.
If you want to litter pick too (why not?) you can join a council scheme. But you don’t have to. You can just do it.
One plus about joining a scheme is that they’ll give you a picker and some bags. You can tell them where you’re leaving the full bags, and the council will usually come and pick them up. But I know the man who empties the park bins now and he takes the full bags off my hands and supplies me with empty ones. When my litter picker broke, he also gave me a new one.
Initials
Sometimes I refer to people using initials. These are often the people I meet regularly when I’m out for a walk. If I don’t know their names, I’ll use initials which refers to something about them to help me identify them later. I’ve met people in this way and known them for years without knowing their names – sometimes there are just more important things to talk about.
Having said all that, you’ll find more references to these people in older posts than new ones. I met a lot of people when I was out walking before work during the late stages of the pandemic. We don’t all see each other so much anymore.
CML
I met Consecutive Morning Lady in February 2023. I just happened to keep seeing her on consecutive weekdays over a few weeks. She was a good time-gauge for the day. If I wanted to get the early train, I knew when I should see her and where.
FMP
FMP is short for ‘favourite morning person’. Actually, I have a few favourite morning people, but she’s a favourite because she’s always so cheerful. We met during the pandemic, when she was walking to work and I was litter picking. She said, “They should pay you for doing that…”, and we’ve chatted in the park ever since. Once, she came round for a cup of tea. I do actually know her first name.
TMWDIAB
I met The Man Whose Dog Is A Bastard in 2020. For some reason, I posted this on Tumblr way before I started these notes:
In the park this morning a guy paused until I’d gone past before throwing a ball for his dog. I said ‘thanks’, he said ‘Ok. I’m a terrible thrower. I hit a donkey’. I said, ‘Oh! The dog looks happy though. Cute dog’. He said, ‘The dog’s a bastard.’
22 May 2020
The dog was a small wire-haired terrier: bit grumpy, bit old and didn’t like to be touched. The man took great care of him and whenever we used to chat, the dog would bark for treats. The man would feed them to him in a steady stream, in the hope he’d shut up. He rarely did. In the pandemic, we’d often pass each other in the fields, so we went from saying ‘Morning’ to stopping for a proper chat. Sadly the bastard dog died at the either at the end of 2024 or early 2025. I only found out in February 2025.
T
Here’s what I wrote about T back in 2022:
“T is the first friend I made walking through the pandemic. He’s retired and walks most mornings, sometimes with 2 friends, sometimes alone. He always talks to me, his friends never do. If you’ve pictured him, I can almost guarantee that’s not what he looks like.”
These days, T has a job. For a while, after the pandemic, T started walking with just one friend, who I usually call ‘T’s mate’. T’s mate never used to talk, but when T got a job, he started to chat.
(The other) T
(The other) T is employed by the council to empty the bins in the park. He keeps me supplied with bin bags for litter picking. Sometimes he plays Frank Sinatra loudly in his van and listens to it through the open window while he works. I love it. If you mention him to anyone around here, they’ll tell you how much they like him.
Walknotes 