Ronda, Spain, Spanish, Themes, and Everything Else

We went to a work-related picnic the other day where there must have been about 17 or 18 adults and a bunch of kids. The group was unusual in that the normal clique's didn't turn up, so conversations weren't dominated by a vocal minority. In fact the complete opposite. Small groups of 2-5 people seemed to regularly form, dissipate, reform etc.

I remember at one point having a local conversation, watching the children play tag on the field, and also being aware of a not-quite conversation that seemed to be happening at a global level. Now that doesn't make sense does it? By global I mean an overriding conversation that was happening across all of the local conversations. My own local conversation was about the cost of petrol, other groups were talking about people at work or something that had happened at the pub. The global conversation was about the kids, who regularly interrupted the adults.

Interestingly the global conversation was ongoing. Each small group continued to have its own conversation and would then pause to join the global conversation for a brief moment, and then resume locally. What was even more interesting was that different groups would pause their local conversation at different times yet still seemed to be aware of the global conversation and would contribute when they needed to. Read More