The Mad Woman of Utcheter.

(‘Utcheter’ is what the lazy locals call Uttoxeter.)

Some months ago I was walking through Uttoxeter bus station when I saw an elderly woman sitting in one of the shelters, surrounded by shopping bags and other receptacles full to the brim with household requisites, blankets and so on. I asked her whether she was homeless because I thought the bags might contain all her worldly possessions and intended to give her some money with which to buy a hot drink and a meal. She reacted sharply and denied the fact, and so I apologised and walked on.

I saw her several times in the same shelter, but then she and her ‘possessions’ disappeared for a few weeks. And then the pattern changed. At the bottom end of the bus station is a taxi rank consisting of a long glass shelter with a bench running the whole length and big enough to accommodate around eight people. A few weeks ago I took the same route through the bus station and noticed that the bench in the taxi rank was completely covered with the same collection of receptacles which I’d seen surrounding the old lady. Only the old lady wasn’t with them, and what’s odd is that this huge collection of household requisites has been in the shelter, unattended, ever since. And I should add that all this stuff looks brand new.

So, skip back a few weeks…

I was in the retail park down the hill from the town and passing the B&Q store (it’s one of a national chain of hardware/DIY/garden stores.) And there was the old lady walking out of the place with a shopping trolley full of yet more of the same bags and receptacles – all apparently new and freshly bought.

Skip back a little further…

I made a blog post about an old woman with matted grey hair who was wandering around a charity shop, eying me suspiciously and talking to somebody who wasn’t there. I realised when I saw the woman at B&Q that it was the same woman.

So now I have a mystery on my hands: Who is this woman? Why does she make an apparent career of endlessly buying household requisites? Where does she find the money, because it must be costing her a small fortune? Why does she leave it all lying around in a public place for anyone to steal? And maybe most important of all, from which attic has she escaped and should women called Jane keep a fire extinguisher handy. (I’m assuming everybody is familiar with Jane Eyre.)

End (so far.)

Sorry for the ramble, but the creature which invades the roof space above my kitchen is being particularly troublesome tonight and it’s driving me to distraction.