observed...

I love being out and about, observing people. I assumed everybody did it, when I was young. I found out in my teens this was not the case. My mother and I used to get the same train in the morning, me to school, she to her job in London. Being a small country station, the same faces could be seen on the platform, day in, day out. I would observe them keenly, noticing new haircuts, changed expressions, who was hiding behind their paper. Now they'd all be deep in electronic devices, but this was the 80s.
I made an observation to my mother once about one of the regulars. She had no idea who I was talking about. It transpired she was busy watching the buds on the trees or the development of the flowers in the changing seasons. Diff'rent strokes.
The first person I observed in the last week or so was a student on the bus back into Brighton from the university. About 20 or so, with badly dyed, pastel-pink hair, she was talking enthusiastically to her companion about the tattoo she was planning. Not on the throat, because that would be painful, but on the side of her neck, perhaps. One of her friends had had carved (sorry, I'm not into tattoos) into his neck a line from Anne Boleyn's speech written the night before her execution, something about greeting death like a sleep. Anne, you did not die in vain.
The second person I saw was a street cleaner by the side of the park, his high vis jacket a welcome spot of colour against the dark bareness of the winter trees. As I approached I could see he was very animated on his phone, his litter picker-upper perched in the crook of his arm as he leaned on his trolley. As I walked past him, I noticed he was Facetime or Skyping a woman entirely in sign language and she was reciprocating. From the grin on his face, I guessed things were good.
The third was in fact a couple who sat opposite me on a London-bound train. They got on at Gatwick, heavy with bags. I think they were Portuguese, although my knowledge of languages is woefully shaky. They each got out an M & S sandwich and removing both halves, stacked one on the other and took a bite through all four slices of bread. In between these mammoth mouthfuls they chatted animatedly. Why the double stack, I wondered? Was it a Portuguese trait or was it just them? I asked on Facebook and it being Friday afternoon a spirited discussion soon sprung up, complete with emojis. Some Portuguese were consulted and they said they'd never heard of such a thing. One person admired the time-saving nature of the practice, another contradicted saying it would take just as long to eat as the mouthfuls were bigger.