For This Relief...

… much thanks. Finally, something which might be of very little consequence in itself, but which at least makes a welcome change from the health issue currently dominating my life and blog:

I was in Tesco today and wanted to use the toilet. The notice on the door to the gents informed me that it was currently being cleaned by a female operative and would I please use the disabled loo. Problem: the disabled loo was locked, presumably occupied. I prepared to wait.

But then the female operative came out of the gents and I asked her whether she'd finished. ‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘What d’you want, just a quick wee?’

This is typical of the bluntness for which the northern English are rightly renowned, and so I smiled as I politely remonstrated with her for asking a question which might be considered indiscreet (it took a little longer to realise that it also sounded like an offer to supply something which lies outside the usual remit of a respectable supermarket.) And then I said 'yes.' She smiled back and I proceeded on my merry way to welcome relief.

And then I wondered whether, in different circumstances, I would have had the courage to say ‘no.’