The Only Way is Up..

You never know, do you, what you'll find in a carrier bag on the pavement? A big white carrier bag, not one of those unpleasant little pooch-pooh bags that you see dangling in the hedgerows these days.

I once admired the jacket of a colleague in school. Knowing her propensity for rooting out charity shop bargains, I remarked that she had got lucky with this one. She told me that she had indeed been fortunate. She had seen a white carrier bag (No, I don't know if it was from Waitrose, really..) tucked in the hedge while out walking one day. Curious, she opened it, to find this jacket. Curious, indeed. So I said that she had obviously taken it to the dry-cleaners.
"No, it passed the sniff-test, and so here it is!"
Now, I'm a great believer in sniff-tests... when it comes to food. My children would, and do, turf out a lot of expired yoghurts on the basis of date, alone. Nonsense.
Anyway, after this extraordinary tale, mine this morning seems a little tame. However, not to be deterred..

Dearest and I sallied forth at seven this morning, and worked up a fair old froth. Well, I did. As we walked down The Avenue, a beautiful tree-lined road, I began to notice a number of items of litter at intermittent intervals, whenever I gulped for air. (Dearest believes he's training me for the four minute mile. Fat chance.) The inspiration of David Sedaris in my head, and the recent Clean for the Queen campaign not long past, I saw a carrier bag. Empty, just the job. From Asda, actually, since you're asking.
I started, with the Colgate ring of virtue, haloing round my head, to pick up empty coke bottles and beer cans. Thirty seconds later, there was a crash of Carling Black Label on the pavement as the carrier bag had obviously been jettisoned because it had a ruddy great gaping hole in it. I hastily gathered up the empties, now looking to the world at large, that I had a serious seven o'clock in the morning drink problem, and clutched them along with the carrier bag as I looked for a bin.
A quarter of a mile later, I came across a bin, and do you know what, dear readers?
I didn't discard them there and then, I  took my beer cans home and re-cycled them.
You can join me on this Stairway to Heaven. Any time you like.
Just make sure you have a good strong carrier bag in your pocket.
Brand irrelevant.

Autumn

 

Spring in your step.