Talking Point with Vicky Turrell: 'The countryside should soon be fresh and green'

“That’s me sorted,” said the man in shorts on a freezing cold day. “Now we are in Spring it’s shorts for me ‘till it snows.”

By contributor Vicky Turrell
Published

Have you noticed that some people wear shorts with bare legs even in cold weather? I do not know how they can bear it! I was wearing woollen tights and a down filled coat with my hood up. “Now when I set off for work at six in the morning, I can just see a sliver of light on the horizon. It’s marvellous.” I did not say but at six I the morning I am still in bed tucked up under the duvet.

Last week I also did not say to Mr T that the box of special dark chocolates I had bought were a gift for a friend. She has had an operation and has been non weight baring for some time but is now at the stage of wearing casual shoes it has been a long recovery and I went to see her forgetting to take the special box of chocolates. “Never mind,” I told her I will bring them next time I come. But when I arrived home Mr T was eating them. He had no idea I had bought them for my friend – I should have said.

Vicky Turrell
Vicky Turrell

Surely the motorway information notices above my head did not need to say ‘Fog’. As if we did not know ‘Fog’ it said again as I searched for my fog light under the steering column and I wished for the umpteenth time that it was not hidden away. I was on my way to the east coast, where I was told that the puffins are back. But I did not see any puffins on that windy cold day just gannets clinging to the rocks after swooping in from Africa on their impressive two-meter wingspan. It is a sure sign that the man in shorts was right and that spring is on its way.

The countryside should soon be looking fresh and green with new shoots growing fast. But sometimes as you drive or walk along, a gateway is filled with rubbish or the grass verges are littered with takeaway meal containers. It is so bad in some areas that the government is considering stricter measures on offenders.

There does not seem to be much rubbish thrown where we are now. The only rubbish I see is sweet wrappers in the bus shelter. I think it is from the children waiting for their school bus, and even then, they slip it carefully between the wooden slats of the seat, so it does not blow about. Maybe it does not count if it is tidy.