Every weekday, I get in my car, possibly saying hello to a neighbour leaving at the same time, and drive to work. I spend the days talking with colleagues and the children, then I drive home.

If I go out shopping, I normally go in the car and at the shopping centre go about my business as others do theirs.

But on Sunday mornings when I walk to buy my newspaper I always talk to at least one passing stranger on the way and sometimes it may be up to half a dozen. They are all doing the same thing as me, walking to the corner shop for a paper or breakfast supplies, or else walking to the station or bus stop, but in a more leisurely manner than during the week.

The conversations don't add up to much - usually greetings followed by remarks about the weather or the gardens and trees around us - but it's all very friendly.

Some people I see regularly, so they are the familiar strangers, whose faces I know but names not, that someone once theorised were the benchmark of feeling happy in a neighbourhood - ie not how many people you actually call a friend, but how many people you regularly smile and nod at.

I suppose to anyone living in a village, who knows all or most people, the ways of townsfolk seem unfriendly, but it's all down to two factors; the sheer press of people in the metropolis - you couldn't possibly acknowledge them all, so you ignore them instead - and the car, which speeds people out of the quieter local area where people do speak if they come face to face.

It's a shame. But at least, on Sundays I get to talk to strangers!