Be Gone, Foul Winter...and Poo

I am fed up with it. Faffing fed up. Today, holed up in my arty-crafty writing room because I am on a writing spurt and can't afford to see it rush by in favour of endless games of Mah-Jong Titans and Googling stupid things like 'Why do hens fling straw over their shoulders?' I was half-listening to Radio 4 and I am sure they mentioned 'more snow on the way.'

What???

It's past the middle of March, for the love of Fred. All the family birthdays are done for a while which is just as well as I am suffering from a prolonged sugar rush from all the birthday cake that's been bandied around, AND our lone but faithful Much Malarkey daffodil has made its annual appearance. It is SPRING, do you hear? SPRING! June, July,August = Summer. September,October, November = Autumn. December, January, February = Winter. March, April, May = Spring. That is how it's always been and how it shall be forever more...okay??

Reluctantly, I still put on the heating. Reluctantly, I still wade through the mud that is the back garden to feed the hens. Reluctantly, I am still donning my enormous Winter woolly over normal clothes. All I can say is that Summer had better be bloomin' good to make up for it. Unless, of course, we are entering the first stages of The Eternal Winter That Shall Henceforth Be The Norm. Ooooh, doesn't bear thinking about.

At least the mornings are light.Cold. Rainy. But light.

Heather arrived home from work. Actually, she burst through the door in an abnormally high state of excitement which generally precedes a Hideous Tale About Her Day in the Management of Social Housing. (I am glad she is starting her new job in a couple of weeks. Especially after what she has just regaled.)

'Guess what the highlight of today was?' she said, all breathless and bursting with excitement. Actually, excitement is probably the wrong word to use, but read on if you dare...

Well, I made a couple of fruitless guesses and gave up.

'Someone,' said Heather, pausing for dramatic effect, 'left an enormous poo in the Ladies Loo...on the floor!'

I didn't know what to say. if Andy was here he would have laughed, if only at the use of the word 'poo.' But he is in Telford on a course, so there was no laughter as poo-related jokes are wasted on me, because I have never been a teenage boy.

Heather continued.

'A poo,' she said. 'A huge, smelly poo. On the floor. Not in the loo. On the floor. I mean, what sort of grown woman does a poo on the floor of a public toilet?'

I was thinking, someone with a poor aim and lack of sphincter control, but didn't say so because I thought a scientific response might detract from the sheer eye-popping horror of the story. So I listened patiently to the rest of the tale, to the shock and horror with which 'Lady Poo On Floor Shock Horror Story' swept its way through the whole company, until some poor so and so at the end of the line was despatched to remove the offending article.

Quite put me off my dinner. And now it is raining...