The Woman From the Walsage MkII.

I woke up this morning to discover that last night had been true to February form: heavy rain, lots of it, pools in places where pools are not supposed to be, the food on the bird tables reduced to a squidgy mess, no sign of Noah anywhere, and it was still raining. And I wanted to go to Uttoxeter today as I always do on a Monday. But I realised that the first thing I needed to do was check and clear the nearby road drains if I was to avoid coming back to find myself living on the bank of a fast flowing river. And so I donned a raincoat and wellies and set off to make a start.

I checked the first two going up the lane to find them clear, and then I spotted a female figure, suitably decked out in rain gear, walking down the lane and waving to me. I waved back and thought ‘I wonder who she is.’ We met and she told me that she’d come to clear all the drains in my lane.

‘But who are you?’ I asked.

‘I live in Mill Lane,’ she replied.

Mill Lane? Aha! The penny dropped. Here was the Woman from the Walsage. Not the woman with the dogs who I mentioned in a post several years ago; she’s gone now. This was the latest incarnation.

‘Ah, you must be S’s wife,’ I said with appropriate conviction, by now having realised that asking a neighbour ‘who are you?’ is marginally short of polite.

‘That’s right,’ she said with a smile. (And what a friendly sort of smile it was. One of those smiles which could endear you to a person if you weren’t as suspicious of appearances – and the state of the human race in general – as I am.)

S, incidentally, is a man I’ve spoken to several times since he took up residence here. He happens to have precisely the same name as a very well known snooker player, and so one has to be careful when making reference to S that the subject of snooker is avoided for the duration of the discussion. Failure to follow this simple edict could lead to all manner of misapprehension which might be the first small step to a situation of cataclysmic proportion, but as far as I know it hasn’t happened yet.

So then the Woman from the Walsage began to explain to me how the flow of water on the lane relates to the positioning of the grids.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’ve been doing this job for years.’

She looked suitably abashed, and I realised in an instant that she was not only practical but also perceptive. It’s the kind of thing I notice, you know. I’m even right sometimes.

And then she asked me where the grids were further up the lane because she had evidently realised that the water has been flowing and gathering strength for about half a mile before reaching here. See what I mean? A paragon of impeccable reason, which I greatly respect.

So off she went to finish the job while I took the opportunity to head off to Uttoxeter. And I did get there, and it did stop raining eventually, and I did get back without notable incident, and I did see floods where I’ve never seen floods before, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. And I decided that I quite like the Woman from the Walsage. If ever I meet her again I might ask her what her name is. And if I'm in a really good mood (which isn't likely) I might even tell her mine.