TheBanyanTree: If you say so

[John Bailey]

Monday April 19, 2004

IF YOU SAY SO

To Spilsby this morning, to fetch linctus, lemons and honey for Graham, who 
has now developed a full-scale summer cough. One of those irritating, dry 
coughs that gets worse before it gets better and hangs around for so long 
you feel a little lost when you finally realize it's gone.

"Put a slug of rum in it, why don't you," I said as he sipped hot lemon and 
honey.

"Don't like rum."

"Whiskey, then."

"Nope."

"I got brandy..."

"Nope. Just leave me be."

I tell ya. Some people just won't be helped. Still, while he's fighting 
he's winning. It's when you don't fight you lose. Quantum, that is.

Monday is market day in Spilsby, when the town square reverts from use as a 
car park to an open air market, with stalls selling local produce and tat 
of all kinds. Antique shops of the junk tendency move small stuff out onto 
the pavement, and every corner has a display of goods for sale, from 
dog-eared paperbacks to brass candelabra. The result is a truly interesting 
bustle, lasting from eight in the morning until somewhere around two in the 
afternoon. It's fun, if you have time to wander and take it all in. But 
finding a parking space within easy walking distance of the centre is close 
to impossible. I was obliged to park some little way out and trudge through 
to the chemist's shop, about as far as I can comfortably walk without 
taking a rest. The friendly local parking warden had been active just 
before I arrived, and penalty notices were splattered on the windscreens of 
all the cars and vans that were parked illegally, to my mild amusement. To 
my much greater amusement I passed five cars parked in disabled parking 
bays without displaying a badge, and each of them had a yellow notice stuck 
on its window and a forty pound fine to pay. Well, when you're plodding 
along with your stick and your wonky knees, walking further on hard 
pavements than you ought, you're entitled to direct some small spite at the 
drivers who've stolen your space, aren't you? No, of course you're not. 
There's never any justification for spite, even of the smaller kind. 
Doesn't stop you feeling it, though, not at the time, it doesn't.

I accomplished my errands and returned to the car to find I'd left the door 
unlocked and the keys in the ignition. No harm done but it gave me a nasty 
turn. "Serve me right for that bit of spite," I muttered, and hastened away 
on sunny roads, heading for home.

The linctus is helping, as is the lemon and honey, and there are now long 
periods when the cough is absent. In the evening I persuaded him to take a 
couple of glasses of Pernod in fresh orange juice.

"Not sure I really want this," he said.

"Nonsense. It's got liquorice and aniseed in it. Both of them good for coughs."

"If you say so."


--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

journal of a writing man:
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>