The View from Parson Street Nose

"Good morning!" A young woman with a pram grinned at me as she passed me in Victoria Park. On the back of the buggy, like a flunkey on a carriage, was standing a little boy.

"Look, Mummy!" He pointed behind me.

"Don't point, Seth," said his mother, "it's rude to point."

I peered over my shoulder, staring aghast at what my dog was holding in his mouth.

"Pickle!" I shouted. "Drop those pants at once."

A rosy blush inflamed my cheeks when I heard the young woman laugh at what I'd said, but still my dog stood there with a pair of blue Y-fronts dangling from his jaws for all the world to see.

"Pants down, Pickle!" I ordered and finally he dropped the dirty pair of drawers onto the path.

"Disgusting," I said, poking them to the side with my toe, trying hard not to wonder how they got there.

I found myself in Asda the other evening and was surprised how the crowd differs from the daytime bunch of young mothers and pensioners.

"What'd you want for tea, Babe?" A girl in a tightly belted coat standing by the ready meals was talking on her phone. "I can do you Chinese or Indian, what's fancy? Oh, no," she said, "I'm not doing you a Mexican, that's far too fiddly what with all those different packets n'all."

Clearly the days of a nice plateful of liver and bacon for supper are long gone.

The Skipper asked me to get some of his favourite vanilla ice-cream while I was out. Just as I reached the freezers I saw a man dip down and whip out a tub of mint-choc-chip.

"Look, Mother," he said, "They've got after-dinner mint ice-cream – mmm."

"Darrell," said his mother, a middle-aged, medium sized woman with startlingly bright peach lipstick. "We don't have ice-cream in winter, you know that. Now put it back, there's a good boy."

Darrell, who looked 35 if he was a day, meekly acquiesced; only tearing his eyes from the enticing swirl of ice cream at the very last minute.  I felt so sorry for him and then extremely guilty when under his watchful eye I added a two litre tub of velvety vanilla to my basket.

My access to the cheese display was blocked by two hulking great fellows wearing leather jackets adorned with chains and studs.

"What cheese shall us get this week, Spike?" asked one, flicking back his long greasy hair to get a better view of his friend.

"Dunno, Man," replied Spike, pulling aside his own curtain of oily locks and peering back at him. "Something mellow – that stuff last week was some heavy cheese. I can't be doing with heavy cheese, Man."

The pair of them stood motionless, gooping at one another.

"Excuse me." Smiling politely and giving a little cough, I reached round the mightily-constructed Spike to grab a slab of Cathedral City.

"Don't forget we've gotta get chickpeas," said Spike. "Man, I love chickpeas. Chickpeas and cheese, you can't get better than that."

Suddenly I was thinking about liver and bacon again.