There`s a lot of limping going on within our older age group when you look around.

At this stage I was slouched on a seat in Koblenz ( 1,300 miles - one week - 99mph &57mpg) as the facilitator for Mrs Oilrags 40th birthday shopping venture.

Elvis Presley`s last motor was on display (want to see the shots?) and another old bloke wearing a leather jacket was speaking to me in German - not realizing in those first few seconds that I could only respond with "blow main ballast tanks" or "surrender"

Translated - "American cars arf arf arf - the panel gaps - it`s not ze Audi"

Cars are nothing really are they compared with with human condition?

An improbably looking older couple limped up with him on the verge of collapse - decanted into the seat beside me as his wife limped off to shop for food across the way.

How long left? and how many years stretching behind - obviously into the years of the Third Reich - wonder what they were doing then? He spoke to me in German and then blanked me realizing I was British.

A couple in their early twenties came by and the bloke put his head through the lifesize sans face mock up of Elvis. She was not amused and they went off together with him being overly attentive and her not not really responding. You could see a failing relationship and a desperate attemopt to hang on.

A young asian family came and all put their heads through the cut out Elvis laughing - along with lots of other young people.

A woman in here 80`s sat alone on a seat nearby and I saw two tears being wiped away. She kept looking from side to side - for someone perhaps no longer there and I longed for the language to approach her. She was `invisible` to all of the younger people passing by and I briefly thought of stopping one of them and attempting to talk through them to her - before abandoning the idea.

She wondered off - heartbreaking to watch in her misery and isolation and the mind ran through possibilities - weighting heavily the loss of a husband after many decades.

Then, you notice the limping.

There are many different gaits and limps - variations of afliction and within that, body shape, age, weight and so on. None identical, but all driven by pain and the need to reduce it - painkillers or not.

All going on within an indoor shopping centre in Germany - but no doubt the same the world over. The limping - then there are the other physical pains and sufferings of the mind that don`t show on the surface.

Elvis never thought about that, you can bet. But his last car is there on display along with his costumes and gold and silver disks.

It has to help, doesn`t it - not least his music.

After two days there, we then blasted back into France, for yet more shopping - really pushing it and I resorted to a couple of paracetamol somewhere on an Autobahn, pushing on 100mph and my back and shoulder muscles protesting.

You`re fighting to keep the van on the road at that speed - but at least the engine sounds relaxed.

Edited by oilrag on 17/05/2010 at 16:40