May I have this dance?

As most of you know, in the UK as well as many other parts of the world, driving takes place on the left side of the road rather than the right, as those of us from the States are accustomed to. This affects a lot of things even when you’re on foot basically all of the time as we are – you have to look opposite ways before crossing the street, be ready to guess which car might hit you if you crossed next to the roundabout, etc. I have learned that this not only affects my ability to cross the street, but it also affects my ability to simply walk down the sidewalk! I have noticed recently (even after being here for over 3 months) that I have been ‘dancing’ with a lot of people. You know.. we see we’ll hit each other if we both stay the course, so we move to one side or the other but accidentally move perfectly right back into each other’s way a couple times.. that kind of thing. It was getting to the point that every time I went out to do something, I ended up dancing with at least one person. I hadn’t taken time to stop and think about it, but it did make for a sense of dread in anticipation of these awkward events that were becoming more frequent every time I went out.

I was walking home from church with Ian last night and I mentioned that I had been having this problem. He said, “Well you know why that is don’t you?” I proceeded to tell him, “No, not really.” And he said, “It’s because their instincts are to move left, and yours are to move right.” The light bulb finally came on! So every time I went out today I made a conscious effort to move to the left if I saw a person coming towards me and I officially danced with no one! :) It works! There may be some other reason that we are unaware of that was causing these dances to happen, but as far as I’m concerned hubby’s hypothesis has been proven correct!

(it never looked quite like the above picture when I danced with people on the sidewalks, but that is actually a Scottish Highlander dance!)