Lines and Squares

By virtue of some newly-revealed Canadian catachresis, I have been giving some thought to pavements.
That isn't entirely true, I think about pavements every day when I walk to work and it runs out, resulting in my walking for part of the way in the cycle lane, or hard shoulder of the road.

The paving slabs that form the pavement through the residential part of my journey, are big, maybe two foot by two foot or thereabouts.
And yet...and yet... I cannot break the childhood habit of trying to avoid the cracks. Pavement used to be - and still is in some places - formed of slabs just big enough to plant your foot in, with perhaps as much room again on either side, and laid in a hopscotch pattern.

I'm not sure what a child thinks will happen if they step on the cracks between the squares, I don't know what I think will happen. Sometimes I deliberately step on the cracks to break the spell.
But on the old-fashioned paving slabs, you could avoid the cracks without alerting anyone to your obsessive behaviour. With the big jobbies around here, no chance. You either bounce along like Zebedee, or take one normal step, one ballet-dancer step and then a hop.

And I bow to the Master, who better than A.A. Milne to capture the child-mind ?

LINES AND SQUARES by A.A. Milne

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

And the little bears growl to each other, "He's mine,
As soon as he's silly and steps on a line."
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It's ever so portant how you walk.
And it's ever so jolly to call out, "Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!"