Here I go with one last blog before the school term starts. I trust that a return to a structured environment may prevent me from becoming a serial eavesdropper/getting arrested, for I confess that I have been pre-occupied by zoning in on other people’s conversations during the holiday break. I am becoming an obsessive earwigger and it is time to wind my neck back in.

A week holidaying on the Welsh coastline is catnip for an over-thinking empath like myself, but is hardly a strong defence. I look like I am lying on the beach engrossed in my book but my sunglasses serve as a useful foil and they balance perfectly on my gigantic nose (some would say that I am perfectly equipped physically for my holiday pastime). Himself – experiencing the same beaches, the same cafes and the same Welsh castles that I do (but blessed with a smaller nose) is incredulous that my radar tunes in on so much surplus (and frankly useless) chat. In a manner which makes it difficult to distinguish between concern and a rap on the knuckles, he comments, ”You must be exhausted after a week away. Time to get you back to school.’

Before contemplating a return to the classroom, I ask Himself to top up my wine glass before sharing the following from a mere 24 hours’ worth of people watching in Wales:

• Comedy gold from a party of Senior Something women who follow us into the aptly named ‘Gallow’s Cafe’ for a late breakfast.
  ‘I just do not take to her. I know I put on three pounds last week, but I dropped one pound this week and there was not so much as a slow hand clap in my direction. A Slimming Club needs a warm Team Leader but she is cold and too thin. I tried so much harder for Kelly; I wanted to make her proud of me each week and she understood the call of a fresh scone. Gold membership seems to count for nothing in this new regime. I will not join you all for breakfast – too many calories, but I will have the quiche and a piece of that coffee cake to console myself. No sugar in my coffee, thanks.’
• My heart goes out to the young man trying to steer an occupied pushchair, three deck chairs, a picnic bag and a wind break down a steep coastal path while his wife stomps ahead totally empty handed. He turns to his father – himself struggling down the same sandy path and trying to keep control of a large and exuberant dog; ‘I do try to help out because she tells me that I do absolutely nothing, but then she tells me that I am doing everything wrong. Apparently this is not the beach she wanted. I am just not cut out for holidays.’
• The teacher in me then wants to sense-check a mother who is addressing a bewildered lad (to my trained teacher eye he looks pre-secondary school age), ‘Just lose that attitude will you? You have developed a real attitude this holiday. When did you become so picky about your sandwiches? I will be so interested to speak to the other mothers in your year group to see if this ‘attitude thing’ is something that they are also all suffering.’ (I want to forewarn the mother that there may be bigger attitudes to worry about in a looming teen future, and that perhaps she is gifted with a son who is developing strong picnic standards, but I am sure she will already have everything covered on a Mumsnet thread).
• Another coffee break and another fragmented piece of chat. ‘He just talks at you. Not a care for your response, not a breath taken, no interest in your life, just talk, talk, talk. This from a woman holding forth to a dejected circle of friends for a good five minutes without drawing breath or inviting any response.

Himself registers my skill for zoning in on inconsequential verbal information but is damning with faint praise when he notes, ‘sadly, if a crime was being committed, your fascination for detail may vex a police team for you are also blessed with an inability to capture body language, facial feature or clothing choice . You would just have to hope that you would at least entertain Crime Watch viewers with a random mishmash of useless information’.

To support his view, Himself asks me if I noticed the father and daughter combo on the table adjacent to our’s in the pub the night before. ‘They were sitting on a table meant for four, diagonally opposite each other, did not speak a word and she stayed on her phone the whole time. She even left all her chips and her father received no thanks for settling the bill. I can testify that those chips were top notch This was a criminal waste.’

I had not even noticed this couple – admittedly I had been distracted by the logistics of marking my territory on a ‘sharing’ platter that had just been delivered to our table. I realise that my nosiness may be overly reliant on speech rather than body language and I may need to up my game. We agree that I will need more practice and next day decide to take a coastal walk in torrential rain. I am determined to prove that I can come out from behind my sunglasses and book.

This walk offers degree standard people-watching opportunities for when the wind is fierce and the rain is horizontal, it is impossible to eavesdrop (or cliff drop) on strangers’ conversations, and I am forced to rely on my observation skills alone. Himself sets me loose in a National Trust car park near Skomer Island (fair play, he does not return to the car while I carry out my field trip) . I last at least thirty minutes before pleading to return in better weather. If you are interested, my research is as follows:

• There is always at least one family member who is reluctant to step out of the car into a howling gale and usually one parent prising them from said vehicle out into the elements.
• There is always one family member – usually the one who is clinging on to the car door – who is wearing Crocs and a t-shirt bearing an offensive slogan. No coat. This family member will eventually lose the fight and skulk a few feet behind their parents – who will be attired from hood to walking boot in matching Berghaus.
• Best of all, you can get away with being really nosey if you go walking in poor conditions near to a bird haven such as Skomer, for even if the puffins are hiding, you have the perfect excuse to use binoculars.

My plan is to combine both my people watching and my earwigging skills when I return to the classroom tomorrow – I may even use these skills on students and not just colleagues.

I return the binoculars to Himself with the smug information that, contrary to his earlier assertions, there are three huge seals at the bottom of the cliff face and not three sheep who have missed their footing. I feel that I am not the only life-long learner who needs a return to the classroom tomorrow, but Himself reminds me that he is now retired and that his only plan for tomorrow is to see if the Gallows Cafe offer a distance delivery service for their spectacular fresh scones.