Country people are

different. No, not all of them of course but there is something which marks them out. There is something about people who come "from the bush", or from "out back".

I was, briefly, in the shopping centre yesterday. Coming back from the chemist I have to pass four clothes' shops. The first of these is rather expensive but there is usually a "sale" rack out the front. A blue cardigan caught my eye, not for me but for one of the residents of a local nursing home. She had asked me to keep an eye out for such a thing. If it was her size it might, if under a certain price, be something I could ask the manager to put aside for a day. (I know the manager for other reasons.) 

It was not her size and it was more expensive than I or L... would have been prepared to pay for it. The other woman looking at it shook her head as well. 

"Good wool is so expensive and we don't get much for it," she told me. 

Immediately I knew she was from the country. It wasn't just her words. They are common enough among the farmers or graziers in this country. The days when we "lived off the sheep's back" have long gone but we still grow some of the best wool in the world. No, there was just that "something" about her. The way she was dressed was smart enough but it was practical. Her hair style was practical. Her nails were short. Her skin was that of someone who has, while attempting to protect it, spent years outside.

I asked her where she was from, "A little place you have probably never heard of," she told me and named it.

"Just north of where I was born," I told her with a smile.

"Oh," she looked delighted and we went on chatting for a little while finding people she knew and who might have been there when I was a very small kitten. Some of the names were familiar.

Her daughter reappeared with her shopping and we laughed at the "coincidence". 

"We'll be down again for the Show," I was told.

"Come and find me in Handicrafts on the Wednesday and Saturday," I told them, "I'll give you a guided tour of the exhibits."

"Yes. I was going to put in some spinning but...things happened. It was so good to meet you."

Off they went with a smile and a wave. And yes, unlike a lot of other casual conversations of that nature, we might briefly meet again. This is what happens when people live in more remote places. Those apparently casual conversations mean more to people who might not see anyone apart from family for days on end. They make connections city dwellers cannot make in the same way.