I’M MAKING no apologies – or sorry, perhaps I am. Well, it is a little of a guilty secret and should be stashed alongside the raspberry ruffle bars and the boxes of After Eight in the fridge – amazing what you can get for £1 these days and no wonder obesity has gifted us all love handles.
What with the Bake Off and An Extra Slice on the television and the amount of sweets £1 can buy in the pound shop, only the gym and a zip across the mouth is saving us all from Diabetes 2.
Anyhow, forget the winter waddle, I needed a pick-me-up. And the confession is on its way. But first, there is a small digression by way of a visit to my lovely aunt who is in a nursing home far away.
I got caught up with one of the other clients – or customers – or residents. This particular lady was way out on her own perched on a seat far from the madding crowd. There was a zimmer exclusion zone of a good 10ft around her. I wondered why.
She seemed like she needed help and I went over to lend it. There is a recent trend towards compassionate living and I try to love people so I took her hands and then she attempted to get up and I got a bit antsy because she was struggling.
“We really need to call a nurse,” I said.
She was not happy. She was very unhappy and she could not voice her distress. Given as my face was millimetres away, it was a no-brainer really. So she spat hard. It was a big gobby spit. It got me full frontal.
I let go of her gently and refrained from the urge to spit back.
“Well now, that wasn’t very nice,” I said, before doing the breast stroke in the spittle all the way to the nearest bathroom.
You have to wince when you hear yourself sounding like your old primary school teacher – all gentle, in control and reasonable.
When what I wanted to do was shout: “You spat on me you bad woman – what did you do that for?”
But I refrained. Just as I refrained when that woman on the Falls Road nearly drove into me, then wound down her window and shouted: “For eff’s sake stop wetting yourself, it was only a mistake.”
This time, covered in spittle – and very wet – I beat a hasty retreat and pondered on the fact that I really ought to have guessed why the woman in question was on her own. Making a mental note to quit the Mary Poppins act and mind one’s own business seemed like a good idea.
But this is a true digression from my original guilty secret.
No, I don’t spit on strangers at the moment, though sorely tempted, and there is no point swearing one would never be driven to a similar reaction in distant years to come. There is no guarantee that an odd angry gob might not hurl forth in my dotage.
Back to the secret that isn’t really one – well, it is called 'The Secret Garden'. And that’s the truth.
You see, I needed to soothe the soul. And since the brandy does not do it, I thought the colouring book might. So I bought one – just for me. My first colouring book in 50 years. I might have chosen Frozen but I’m a wee bit old for Elsa.
My Secret Garden colouring book is sitting in the corner waiting for the perfect silver tin box of sharp colouring pencils. And some day soon, when the world is too much with me, I shall switch off from the news and the brouhaha, settle down at a little table and colour in.
Others may snort, others may laugh. I know there are many who diss colouring in. It’s never creative, it’s just, well, colouring in. Who’s to argue? But there is a certain peace to be found in a set of bright pencils, sharp and neat – virginal in their metal box – and the snowy expanse of the page with just an outline.
Selecting colour can be creative too and the very act beams me down into an old classroom and a golden beam of sunshine across a rickety wooden desk, the swish of the nun’s robes as she walks between the desks, heads bent over paper, the rasp of a lawn mower outside and the smell of fresh mown grass.
There was a holy peace about it all and, at the end, there was a brightly coloured picture. Call it doodling, call it time-out, call it a waste of an afternoon. But you have to find your peace somewhere. And I’m losing myself in the whorls and whirls and swishes of a million flowers in the secret garden.
Perhaps it’s my second childhood. Just don’t knock it or I’ll spit on you.
