A Walk on the Wild Side by Bill Kirton
The walk of the title happened a few Decembers ago. We were staying with family in a picturesque English village – thatched roofs, cottages, fields, all the images you’d associate with a typical Miss Marple mystery. In fact, it’s the village in which the UK TV drama The Midsomer Murders is filmed. And here’s how the walk went. Christmas is a couple of days away. The kids are excited. The overnight snow is quite thick. After breakfast, all gloved and scarfed, I set out to buy the paper – a walk of maybe a mile there and back. Not many people about. As I walk, various alternative scenarios unfold. A burly man in a tee shirt comes wading through the snow towards me. He’s obviously crazy. No one can step outside the door in these temperatures without proper insulation. He clearly has no nervous system. I know for a fact that he’s going to produce a club, maybe an axe from the hedge beside him and I’ll become a stain on the snow and a headline in tomorrow’s paper (or, rather,...