A winter’s tale

It was one of those days that despite the welcome weather of yesterday reminded us that this was still winter. A clear early morning turned in sequence to horizontal snow, a gale of wind, and lashings of rain, all the season in one day. Only the longer, lighter time of year saved us from a truly gloomy Sunday as the late afternoon sun tried to cut through the heavy clouds.
It was not a day to wander far from the hearth other than to fill the coal bucket, and even then you had to choose your moment or wrap up warm for the two-minute exercise.
A need for an item for my tea necessitated a trip up the street. What had looked like a lull in the weather at the back of the house proved to be wrong by the time I stepped out of the front door. Wind whipped rain had me running for the shelter of the car. As the windscreen wipers cleared the torrent I noticed a sheet of paper had been jammed between the wiper and the screen and provided an annoying white blur. There was nothing for it but to leap back out into the wet and remove the object, this would have been easier had I switch off the wipers! Back inside the now damp car I read the paper, was it for car insurance, a garage, car valet maybe? All things car it was not but an advertisement for a new Nairn café – great.
I noted that all the cars in the street had enjoyed the advertisers attention, and whilst mine was readable (Just) I doubted theirs would be by later in the day. Why whoever had been charged with delivering the leaflets chose to target car windscreens rather than letterboxes I will probably never know, unless of course I dry mine out and take it to the new café and ask whilst claiming the free cup of coffee which the sodden sheet of paper offers!