Dear Diary Entry One: Walter Lemmon

Ava's first diary entry, it's time to meet a friendly chap called Walter.

I’ve never written a journal before, but after the weird exchange in Lemmon’s today I felt like I needed to start…

I woke up and went about my usual business — feeding the dog, plucking some weeds that had appeared seemingly overnight, watering the crops. And then, disaster struck.

…Okay, well, maybe not disaster — but my sweet baby carrots that were perfectly healthy just yesterday had been eaten by some birds. Curse those birds.

A doodle of the three birds that ate my carrots.

I had to rush over to Lemmon’s — the local general store owned by this sweet old guy called Walter — because I wanted to make mum’s carrot cake, which has now been set back by at least a week (….stupid birds). I noticed new graffiti on the side of Walter’s building, which is weird because he really doesn’t strike me as the type.

A polaroid photo of Lemmon's shop in the village today.

When I enter the shop dear old Freddy starts sleepily barking at me from his bed — don’t worry, I gave him a big scratch around the ears. He loved it.

Freddy the dog who is a very good boy.

As I’m reaching over to grab the carrot seeds, an impeccably dressed woman stares DAGGERS at me. She grabs the carrot seeds right out of my hand and says, “Those are mine, don’t touch them.” There are at least twenty other packs of seeds! I was so baffled that I just let go of them. But her saying that made me really want those carrot seeds… They’re all the same, why would she even care!? (Then again, why do I even care?) She paid for her seeds (my seeds!) and stomped off. I headed over to the counter with my apparently second-rate carrot seeds.

Walter: “That’s Sabrina — she can be a bit hard to deal with sometimes. She’s a good soul deep down, though. Runs the clothes boutique.”

Me (feeling a bit lost): “Yeah I… I guess she really wanted those particular carrot seeds.”

Walter (with such a sweet grin): “I would also describe Sabrina as particular! She knows exactly what she wants, when she wants it, and who’s going to give it to her.”

I laugh at this point and relax a bit. We started chatting about the shop and Walter’s history. Let me tell you, this guy has lived a life! He grew up in America and travelled here with his sister, I think her name was Josephine, when they were in their twenties. He’s been a musician, an actor, a corporate business guy, a bunch of other things, and eventually a business owner. It sounds like the business that he and Josephine owned sold all sorts of things — but they found their big success once they installed arcade machines in the ‘80s! He even let me into the backroom of his shop and showed off one of the original arcade machines they had — it’s totally broken now and can’t even switch on, but it was really cool to see. I wonder if I can help him fix it one day — he doesn’t exactly seem like the most tech savvy person.

Doodle of the arcade machines.

So after all that, I think I’ve made a new friend! I want him to play guitar next time I visit. Maybe those birds that destroyed my carrots aren’t so bad after all… nah, I’m still mad at them.

What I imagine Walter looks like playing his guitar.