return of the native

[Haven't read this one either. But at least I own it and am faintly acquainted with Mr Hardy.]

Fantasise as I might of moving to a bigger city, I suspect it'll be much wasted on me - for every time I take notice of my town, which is astonishingly seldom, I get culture-shocked.

• What's up with the malls, heh? The layout, the aromas (not always pleasant), the traffic (and the obstructions thereto in the name of continuing development), ... if you didn't know where you were, all point to a location somewhere in Southeast Asia. And if you listened closely enough to the background noise you would hear almost no English.

• Along my cycle-path to Work, on the outskirts of the CBD, are some low-lying parklands just inside the riverbank. A couple ... check that, a man and a woman of undetermined relation, in their early 30s maybe (difficult to tell for reasons which should shortly become apparent) live there. Their entire possessions appear to be the rags they're wearing and what's inside the 4 or 5 bags which hang off a bicycle that's long past its passenger-carrying days. The first time I rode past them I thought they were regular poor folk (ugh listen to myself!) out for a morning stroll and a little treasure-hunting among the rubbish bins. Until the next morning, when I evidently disrupted their slumber - inside large plastic bags set up on the lawn. They probably move around a bit from day to day (whether for change of scenery or at the urging of police/rangers, I wonder), but they keep coming back to the spot which I've come to think of as theirs; and it's not a bad choice, all things considered. When it rains they need only move 10 metres or so to reach a pedestrian underpass. I've taken to ringing my bell (which I'm not in the habit of doing) on approaching this particular underpass, for fear of wrecking their home. Unfortunately it's too late to start saying hello now, we having crossed paths too many times without mutual acknowledgment.

• In any given locale in the world cleaners, like taxi drivers, are invariably non-natives. I've stayed back at Work often enough to have met most of the cleaners who service our building. Whenever I can I make an effort to exchange civilities, with enquiries about their day and family and employment conditions, i.e. the usual condescending questions which even I cannot rise above. I haven't learnt any of their names. I am certain that the objects of my brief and obligatory attention have not a clue most of what escapes my mouth and in any event find it more a nuisance than anything. The basement bike-shed is just outside their HQ (read: a couple of store-rooms); sometimes I see many of them gathered around their equipment trolleys, laughing chatting humming to the radio, oblivious to the language barriers amongst themselves and the more sinister barriers between them and those whose workplaces they clean.