The View from Parson Street Nose

The heat has been rising all over Bedminster and so have the levels of madness.

Why is it as soon as the temperature rises above 20c people begin to lose any semblance of sanity?

There I was wandering along towards Turners in search of lettuce when the mumbling man in front of me stopped dead in his tracks to rant at an empty crisp packet that had dared to flutter across his path. It was too late for me to put the brakes on my sling-backs and I rocketed up the back of him like an amorous bull.

In the grocers the insanity continued with an elderly dame fondling oranges while chuntering to herself:  “Ee's a nice un, oh, e's not so juicy” and so on as she squeezed away at the citrus fruits.

I escaped with my iceberg to the nearest charity shop where two ne’er-do-wells, smelling strongly of cider, were selecting summer shorts from the rack.

"I likes these," said one, dangling aloft a fetching pair of black knee lengths.

"They snow good, no pockets for smokes an stuff," said the other.

"What about these then?"

"Theys worse, theys got button zup front, can't do buttons when yous plastered, can e?"

At this point I began to edge towards the safety of the book section and once there discovered a young woman in a bulging pair of jeggings who was busily engaged in sniffing the pages of a hardback Jilly Cooper.

My look of alarmed amazement drew her attention.

"You can always tell the new ones by their smell, I likes ‘em crisp. Go on, you try it, my love."

I selected a Gervase Phinn under her watchful eye, waved the book under my nose and nodded enthusiastically at her as I moved away to the till.

If you can’t beat them join them.