Was it chance

 Dear Reader,

There hasn't been too much to laugh at these last few weeks but in Friday's newspaper I read the following article and laughed and laughed at is total absurdity.  I am sorry if you saw yourself but it is for those didn't.

A Unisex hairdressing salon in Stroud, Glocestershire put an advertisement in the local paper stating that they were looking for a "happy" stylist to join the business. 'This is a busy, friendly small salon, so only happy, friendly stylist need apply.' it said. The owner, Mrs. Birch, said an official from the Department for Work and Pensions contacted her within an hour of the advertisement going into the paper to say she "couldn't use the word 'happy' as it discriminated against people who weren't happy.  Can you believe it? What will we hear next?  If you didn't laugh you would cry I suppose.

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From Francis Kilvert, 1875,  in Wiltshire.

'The morning suddenly became glorious and we saw what had happened in the night.All night long millions of gossamer spiders had been spinning and the whole country was covered.....The gossamer webs gleamed and twinkled into crimson and gold and green, like the most exquisite shot-silk dress in the finest texture of gauzy silver wire.  I never saw anything like it or anything so exquisite as 'the Virgin's web' glowed with changing opal lights and glanced with all the colours of the rainbows.  At 4 o'clock Miss Meridith Brown and her beautiful sister Etty came over to afternoon tea wit us and a game of croqquet. 

 

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Was it chance                        

that the girl
in the yellow jersey
bought herself a chocolate bar
at the station buffet
and then dropped it?

A man in blue jean jacket
picked it up.
They smiled, talked
missed their trains
and walked away into
a different life.

Was it chance
they saw in an old
newspaper an advertisement
for a cottage by the sea -
their dream home?

Chance can change our lives
does change our lives

we are what we are
where we have been
what we have done
when chance comes knocking.

 

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With very best wishes, Patricia.

Photograph by Nikki Moran.