“A woman was walking along one of the paths with a dog on a lead. She wore a grey tweed coat and transparent pink nylon gloves, and carried two books from the public library in a contraption of rubber straps. What is the use of noticing such details? Dulcie asked herself. It isn’t as if I were a novelist or a private detective. Presumably such a faculty might be said to add to one’ s enjoyment of life, but so often what one observed was neitehr amusing nor interesting, but just upsetting.”
Barbara Pym, No Fond Return of Love