The View from Parson Street Nose

It was so grey, claggy and cold the other morning it was like driving through mushroom soup. I almost nodded off at the traffic lights until a kindly lorry driver played a rousing concerto on the horn that soon had me whizzing off again.

I shivered my way down the precinct wrapped up to the ears in a fluffy scarf, hat and thick coat. Loathe to remove my sheepskin mittens as I struggled with the veg at Bedminster Flowers, a cacophony behind me sent my Maris Pipers tumbling.

The cougher was a girl wearing whisper-thin tights, matted UGG boots and a skirt roughly the size of a sticking-plaster. All she had to keep her warm was a hooded jerkin and a thin black scarf wrapped over her face. The hacking cough wracked her again as she tried to pick up some bananas with fingers red as crab-sticks.

"Sounds like the croup to me!" A little lady clutching a bowl of onions blinked up at me. "Trouble is with they youngsters, they don't wear vests nowadays, do they?"

Luckily the wisp of a girl had her ear-plugs hissing away and didn't catch the comment.

"Poor little soul," I said. "She must be freezing."

"Only got herself to blame for not wearing a vest, is what I say." The little lady adjusted her scarf and waddled inside to pay for her onions.

The joggers and runners were out in force when I went down for the fish and chips the other night. A girl in black with fluorescent strips across her rear portions bounced around me, her hot breath puffing in the icy air. Shuddering, I watched horrified as her bare ankles retreated down the pavement.

The usual boys on bikes were loitering outside the Argus and when I exited with the fish suppers they were calling after a tubby chap wearing football shorts over black tights.

"I likes your tights, mate!" yelled one boy, almost falling out of his saddle. "You wants to run a bit faster to burn off all those horse-burgers you've been eating."

"Yeah, run like Shergar, don't eat 'im!" added another of the bike-boys.

Coming fast down the pavement towards me was a vision in pink. The young woman was clad from top to toe in fuchsia Lycra including a pink base-ball cap. As she pounded past me I slowed my pace, listening hard for the inevitable comments from the bike-boys.

"Gor! It's a flamingo. Wey-hey love, you off down the watering hole? Where's Attenborough? Has he popped down Tescos for your Trill?"

Those boys are never at a loss for words.