Windblown

          The fact that there had been three storms within seven days made venturing outdoors unappealing at best and dangerous at worst. But there came a point when cabin fever symptoms began to manifest themselves to me in the form of contemplating shuffling the furniture and furnishings in pursuit of perfect feng shui. That was when I decided to boot up and venture outside. After all, when we moved here from central Manchester, I declared that I no longer had need of a gym, as this place is well situated for outdoor activities.

          So, in between gales, I tooled up for a walk with my litter-picker and a stout bag that would not blow away too readily. But it seemed that everyone else – including the litter-louts – had, like me, stayed indoors, as there was no litter, except for some fragments of a sheet of corrugated plastic roofing, the main section of which was beyond my capacity to cope and had to be left for the council’s clear-up team – assuming there is one. I also came across an abandoned tent, collapsed against a wall in the park. I don’t know how long it had been there, having been away for the previous week, but there were signs of habitation, so I left it for the absent owner to sort out and retired to the comfort of a permanent home, where I felt more than a little privileged.

          The next day, I was walking past Tommy’s junk shop and decided to pop in for a nosey. He was shifting stuff around, listlessly rearranging the stock according to a plan discernible only to himself. There was no one in the shop and, when I asked how he was, he admitted to being a bit down-in-the-dumps, saying he had seen only three people walk past all day. “Sometimes I just want to leave it all behind for a while, just get away. Know what I mean?” he said. Our conversation turned to ways of improving his business so that he could afford to take on an employee and absent himself occasionally. But he admitted that he is a “trader” at heart, not a shopkeeper with a bent for window-dressing and customer service – which has certain advantages for me: I picked up a nice cast-aluminium bowl, a perfect complement to the one we already have in the kitchen and that is always overflowing with onions; and a copy of another classic I have been meaning to read, Laurens Van Der Post’s The Lost World of the Kalahari, dedicated to “Dad, with love from Molly, Peter & Megan, July 31^st 1962” (I bet he never read it either); both for the sum of £1.50. I handed him £2 and urged him to keep the change, mentally questioning his business acumen.

          After the third gale had blown through, I resumed my routine constitutional walks and found that, in the park, the wind-blown tent was still there, still collapsed and unoccupied. As I stood speculating on what had become of its occupant(s), a couple of dog-walkers went by, uncommenting and apparently uninterested. It seemed reasonable to assume that the tent had been abandoned and that its unfortunate occupant(s) had found accommodation elsewhere, so I took the unilateral decision to dispose of it. I gloved up and emptied its contents – a plastic bag of perishable foodstuffs, some empty beer cans, a sodden sleeping bag and a few garments. Then I rolled up the tent, stuffed it into a refuse sack and transported the lot to the capacious council bin on the road nearby.

          Now, I ask myself this question: Was mine the uncompassionate act of a litter-picking zealot or the sensible response of an environmentally concerned citizen? But I also ask this: considering the immense wealth that capitalism has extracted from the Earth and funnelled into the Swiss bank accounts of a tiny minority of individuals, why are social services so underfunded?