I witnessed an interesting phenomenon on Monday.

I had to go down to the village for something and while I was there Penny decided I wanted a coffee.  She does that – just walks in the gate to the coffee shop and I have to drag her out again if I am heading somewhere else.  This time I let her continue in.

The shop terrace was fairly full, it being a bank holiday [I had forgotten about that – I normally avoid the village on such an occasion], but I grabbed my usual seat.  There was a Fine Thing sitting at the next table and she had a dog.  So her dog and Penny had a grand old sniff around each other before settling down.  I said to the Fine Thing that it would be nice if we humans could be so open as to sniff each other on meeting.  She laughed and agreed, but she didn’t take the hint.

Anyhows, all the tables were now taken bar one.  That was the table at the entrance which only has two chairs otherwise it would block the entrance gate.  A couple came in an sat at that table.  Fine.  No problem.

But then a woman arrived who obviously wanted to join them.  She grabbed a spare chair and promptly blocked the gate.  To put it mildly this woman was light years away from being a model, so she blocked the gate very efficiently, being somewhat broad in the beam.  I sat back to watch the fun when some poor sod wanted to leave.

My fun was apparently short lived though as she hauled herself to her feet [all but taking the chair with her as it was clamped to her arse] and waddled out onto the pavement outside.  She stopped outside the gate but carried on her [loud] conversation with the original couple.  She then produced a cigarette, lit it and continued to puff and converse until she had had her fix, whereupon she waddled back in to block the gate again.  This little routine was repeated several times.  Each time she wanted a fag she clomped outside to the pavement.

Let’s look at the facts here.

The terrace is a smoking area, and in fact I was enjoying a pipe-full during all this pantomime.

The terrace is an open air area.

The terrace is separated from the pavement by an [open] little gate and some [open] railings.

Why was this woman stepping “outside”?

The only conclusion I can come to is that she had been so conditioned by the Anti-Smokers that she automatically had to leave a property before she could enjoy her ciggie.  The fact that she was just moving a couple of feet in the open air and could continue to carry on her [loud] conversation didn’t seem to occur to her that her actions were so absurd.

It worries me that so many people can be so conditioned that they actually change their behaviour despite all the evidence that what they are doing is completely illogical.

It’s sad.