Ward off the wardens

Feeling as jolly as Mrs Tiggywinkle, and twice as pretty, I blinked in the early morning sunlight, sensing spring in the air when ..... Could this be all a dream? Was this Heaton Moor? Or had I been transported to some country bearing the prefix 'former'. Had this become ' The Former Heaton Moor'? Believe me when I tell you that no fewer than three uniformed officers, huge and fearsome-looking, were patroling fifty yards of Heaton Moor Road! I was scared! Military style hats, luminous jackets, size fifty two across the chest and stiff as contiboard, jack-boots - and expressions that would curdle the cream in Backs Deli!

I decided not to take to the bushes but to appear nonchalant. After all, I'd parked at Nat West and they couldn't enter that hallowed ground, could they? Or, could they? They might report me to Nat West for going for a pound of sausages while my car in all it's red sports coupee splendour sat in their poxy car park! I had an alibi! I'd been to the cash-point and printed out a quick statement.That made it all legal didn't it?

I darted into the Health Centre as one of these officers goose-stepped around a black Mercedes parked at the kerb. Should I dash into the waiting room and shout 'They're here! Get to your car while I keep your seat in here!'? Thinks 'You'll be at least another forty minutes and that's if you do manage to decipher your name from the PA system that sounds like the first moments of a bagpipe tune-up'.

Then I realised why I shouldn't do anything. Only doctors, funeral directors and financial advisers would have a black Merk. That was ok. I crept back toward the Co-op and saw two more of these Nazi-looking despicable-seeming allegedly servants of the people, one on either side of the road. I wondered if they drank coffee, or ate doughnuts or spoke or breathed or did any bloody thing other than menace poor innocent project managers out for their morning shop.

Was I glad to get back to my unit, - I mean, apartment, and into the womb of my kitchen and to Woman's Hour. Thank God I was safe! They were playing I'm Not Gay but I Snog You All Day. Was this the 'Former Womans Hour?