I WAS killing time - an hour in which to twiddle my thumbs, find a café or stretch my legs. I chose the last, heading for Shotover Country Park, last visited when my near 40-year-old son was in his pushchair.

The morning was fresh and dry, yet except from one painfully thin young man and me, the place was deserted. He was perched on his leather-seated shooting stick, a peaceful expression across his gaunt features.

We exchanged pleasantries and names, and admired the view. He spoke lovingly of other panoramas of Oxford as seen from such lofty locations as Boar's Hill, South Park and Cumnor Hill, as well as places in the city centre that until recently had been more familiar to tourists than to himself.

"You're making a study of it?" I suggested.

"Not really," he replied. "I'm making up for lost time."

He said he was 31 and had a terminal illness. It had come as an unbelievable shock when given the black news at Easter. Angry at first, he quickly realised it was pointless wallowing in self-pity; much better to do some of those things he had pushed on to the back burner.

We spoke of our favourite spots, he choosing the cobbles of Merton Street and the riverbank between Folly Bridge and Donnington Bridge, the one compact and reassuring, the other open to the mercy of the elements.

"What brings you to Shotover?" he asked.

I mumbled some reply. The truth - that I was killing time - would have been thoughtless.

This was nine weeks ago. The other day, I was told he had died. Three days before, he had been taken in a wheelchair to his favourite stretch of the riverbank where the sun, as if realising the significance of the occasion, turned the Thames into a golden river flowing with diamonds.

What did I think of those stores that shamefully used non-recyclable packaging materials, asked the middle-aged woman sporting badges relating to saving the whale and the planet? I confessed this hadn't so far troubled my sleep.

She was annoyed that Marks & Spencer were low in the league when it came to environment-friendly packaging, and was miffed that she didn't live close to one of the more conservation-conscious Asda stores.

Her much younger male escort, tattooed and wearing enough face furniture to stock a medium-sized jewellers', joined us at a table in the café beneath Carfax Tower. He asked where I did the bulk of my shopping. The answer was not popular. Too keen on plastic and cellophane was his verdict.

I soon became the sole student at a two-handed lecture on recycling, first one throwing in a string of facts, then the other, before coming together in a scissor movement, declaring that everyone talked about saving the world without doing anything positive.

"Do you know the biggest culprits?" asked she of the badges.

I pleaded ignorance.

"The washing liquid makers," she replied venomously.

"In what way?"

"Washing balls!" he of the tattoos declared, causing four customers at the next table to turn around. "Those washing liquid measuring balls - they stick them on plastic containers. They could be used over and over again, so why put a new one on every bottle?"

It wouldn't have done for them to study too closely the contents of my plastic carrier bag, so I made my excuses and left.

The tiny boy on reins was being given a practical lesson in kicking leaves. There was a pile by the wall outside the lower deck of the Westgate Centre, just waiting to be kicked.

Teacher' was grandmother. She struck first with one foot and then the other, raising a shower of red, gold and brown, much to the boy's delight.

"Grandparents can get away with it," she said when she saw me smiling. "Join in if you like."

It was an invitation too good to pass.