The View from Parson Street Nose

One chilly morning I encountered a merry little drunk tottering along down the middle of Park Road; singing in between each swig from his can, he was utterly oblivious to the badly parked van looming ahead of him.

The drunk caught his foot on a jutting wheel and jerked forwards, sending a great spume shooting out of the can. The sticky beer splattered down onto the road surface, spreading like an oil slick on the cold Tarmac.

"You big b***er!" The little drunk gave the offending wheel a kick. "You've shpilled my shpesh! How dare you trip a fellow up when heesh drinkin'?"

Shaking his fist at the slewed van the drunk wove his way across Beauley Road, staggering up the lane, he vanished.

I got stuck behind a tubby trio exiting Aldi.

"Jason!" said the mother. "Will you stop stopping. I almost had you with the trolley then."

Red-haired Jason, with his lurid purple shorts and lilac socks pulled half-way up to his knees, didn't even deign to look up from his phone.

"He's playing with his Apps, Mum," said the daughter, throwing her arms around her mother's waist, trying to make her hands meet on the other side. "Ooh, its cold!" she wailed, as the door swished open. "Give me a cuddle, Mum." The girl appeared to be trying to get under her mother's armpit in the doorway.

I should add at this juncture, that both of the woman's offspring were in their mid-twenties and constructed sturdily enough to make a Sumo wrestler think twice before tangling with them.

As soon as I could squeeze past, I was off, heading for the car. As I packed the boot a mind-numbing crash almost ejected me out of my Hush Puppies. I realised with a discrete sigh that the sturdy threesome's Wally waggon was parked next to my jalopy.

"Daisy!" shouted her mother. "Careful with those cans or they'll go off like rockets."

Daisy, now man-handling a sack of potatoes, dropped the spuds in the back of the waggon with a thud.

"Yeah, Dais." Jason shoved his phone into a pocket and nudged his sister with a meaty shoulder. "Take it easy."

"Like you, you mean?"

Daisy was on her brother in a trice. As I watched the siblings tussle, I was strangely reminded of two grizzly bears scrapping over territory I'd recently seen in a wildlife documentary.

Gently reversing out from my space, the last I saw of the warring twosome was the pair rolling on the ground with Daisy grabbing handfuls of the ginger fur on her brother's legs and him shrieking like chimp.

I popped down to Tesco the other morning for some milk and crumpets and on the way back the sun came out; shining down on nodding daffodils, a smattering of delicate pink blossom – and the first pair of pants in the gutter.

Truly, spring must be on its way.