Dreamaticus

My elderly neighbour Mrs Frazier was dying of a deadly disease, and for this reason I was helping her with her walled garden. I half expected that she would leave it to me, along with her tiny mews house. I didn’t know whether I would maintain her rule that any visitors who wished to enter the house should don a blue scarf.

After an afternoon of weeding I got stuck on the top of a tall plinth just outside the garden wall. From high above I watched a troupe of French Canadian Fringe performers accost people in the street in an attempt to persuade them to come along to their show. When I shouted down to them “Go home! The Fringe is over!” they threw a flock of “magic birds” at me. From here, of course, I could tell that the birds weren’t magic at all. They were tiny jointed plastic models attached at regular intervals along a clear plastic fishing line.

By now I was fed up of sitting on the plinth. I hoped that someone with a crane would come and lift me down. In the end it was a very tall person who rescued me. Dressed in a green tweed suit, he introduced himself as “Grandpa”. He reminded me of someone very dear to my heart.