Baby Steps

Baby Steps


“It’s like the land that time fucking forgot round here.” I nod in agreement as I pass my neighbour on the path. “Bloody council! We’re always the last to get anything done.” Well at least she is speaking to me today. She does have a point though. While going ahead with a new £100 million headquarters Aberdeen City Council are trying to claw back money by cutting back on what they regard as non-essential services.

Four days of snow has thawed and frozen over and over again. The search for a safe path on fresh snow has resulted is a dimpled surface rather like a golf ball made of glass. It’s easier to walk in the troughs made by car tyres. At the local corner-shop an Irish man tells me he fell on his arse twice on his way there. I think the hangover that forced him out in this weather may have had something to do with it as I wish him a safe journey home with his bottle of Grouse Whisky.

There was a day when people would clear their own paths up to their neighbour’s boundary and they would do likewise. In such a way whole streets would be cleared. On the other side of the road a mother starts laughing exaggeratedly to stop her toddler, who has just fallen on the ice, from crying. Round here it is better to be tough. As my mate John says, “sympathy is somewhere between sex and syphilis.” I don’t think anyone round here will be dreaming of a White Christmas for years to come. Mind you, for the New Year I could easily fall for a young Raquel Welch in her furry bikini.

harsh night –
a beer-can nose
on the snowman