Revenge of the citrus fruit

LIVING by the sea you begin to view the weather like that nursery rhyme 'There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead; When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.'  The weather tends to swing from extremes and in winter can seem very bleak.  I tend to get by with a decent winter coat, the hope that it will soon be Spring, and an endless supply of satsumas to snack on in a vague optimism that they will stop me a, indulging in fatty comfort foods, and b, venturing out in the cold to find said comfort foods.

Quite bizarrely, my favourites, tangerines, have disappeared off the supermarkets' radars - you cannot buy them any more. There isn't even a space on the shelf where they used to be - I only assume there must be a big tangerine cover-up by the government - and any supermarket staff who are so bold as to enquire when the next delivery of tangerines is likely to be are taken into a small hidden room and beaten with their own name-badges until they forget the fruit ever existed.   I now have to make do with the pip-laden satsumas, the unpeelable clementines or the ambiguous 'citrus fruit'  - some tasteless substitute for the fantastic tangerine which is that bland it doesn't even deserve an exciting name.  Nevertheless I have an unwritten rule that five or more of these must be within grabbing distance - a snacking device which has horribly backfired on me.

 

 My car has been smelling bad recently - I suspected it was due to a forgotten satsuma or even worse - citrus fruit - loose in my car somewhere and rotting.  Having searched under the seats I couldn't find anything and put the odd smell as being the window de-icer sprays I had bought; they were on offer so I got carried away and bought enough to keep 20 greenhouses defrosted for about two years.  With the snow last week I congratulated myself in being organised enough to buy this spray in advance and with a certain smugness ran outside before work to get the car cleared in time.  I mentally high-fived myself for my preparation skills, stuffing the car with a fleece blanket and a shovel. I hasten to add this was advised by people on the TV for anyone braving the snowy conditions and not because I wanted to shift a dead body as suggested by a suspicious neighbour.  As I opened the car boot I could hear heavenly choirs sing in celebration of my triumphant ability to be ready for the snow as I grabbed my wellies (which had sat in the car since my death-hike up to the Centre for Alternative Technology).

 Car running? Check. Snow cleared? Check. Blanket and shovel ready for snowy (not murderous) conditions? Check. Wellies on? Almost. Wearing the obligatory three pairs of socks required for wellies-in-snow situations I jammed my right foot in a boot... And screamed.

 Soaking through all three pairs of socks was what used to be a citrus fruit. A very mouldy, soft and smelly citrus fruit.   Source of bad smell in car identified? Check.  With no other option for practical footwear I cleaned the inside of the wellie as best I could, changed the socks and spent the entire day smelling like a rotten bowl of fruit and squelching when I walked. 

 

 How did the fruit get in my boot in the first place? I have no idea - probably linked to my carrying them for snacking with me all the time. But I just can't shake off the vision of a government official sitting at his large mahogany desk somewhere wringing his hands, smiling to himself and muttering: 'That'll teach her for asking questions about tangerines.'