Disturbed by flashers

Some people would probably be quite pleased to be woken up in bed by strapping men in uniforms.

I wish to state, for the record M’lud, that I’m not one of them.

After my poor-quality cappuccinos and Health & Safety blighted weekend in Wales, I was looking forward to a nice lie-in on Saturday morning. After the trials and tribulations of yet another week of wearing outlandish shirts and pretending to know about marketing, I thought I’d earned it. Life firmly declared that I hadn’t at 3.45am, just as the first hint of dawn crept into my room (That’s ‘dawn’ with a small ‘d’. I have to be very careful with capital letters, as my Sister-in-law is called Dawn. It could get quite awkward).

The loud sound of an engine, and flickering lights, saw me clambering to the window as fast as my old bones would carry me. Had there been an arthritic tortoise present, he might well have got there first. As there wasn’t, I tentatively peeked through the gap in the curtains, just in case it was aliens. It wasn’t. It was a fire engine, two doors up our terrace. I may not have heard any sirens, but I definitely had my own alarm bells going off now. Would I have time to save my 1500 CDs? And the Mrs? What if there wasn’t time to choose!

By the time we’d donned dressing gowns and were stood in the chilly air on our doorstep, there were two of them. Our similarly under-dressed neighbour said she had heard an explosion, and the window of the house next door had blown out. The firepersonages weren’t looking too rushed, so after I’d surveyed the similarly bemused and bleary-eyed neighbours stood around in various degrees of bed-wear, I sensed my big journalistic break looming, but still felt a bit awkward taking a snap with the camera on my phone.

David Bailey has little to fear – as it was only just getting light, my phone camera focussed instead on the blue flashing light of the fire engines. The photo does look dramatic, but largely because it’s blurred and looks like everything is in motion. I blame the fact that I was conscious of my dressing gown flapping in the breeze and was trying to stop it billowing like a sail – there was already enough flashing going on, and quite a few hoses on display.

At this point, I remembered that, apart from the bed hair (annoying it can still do that, considering there’s so little of it), I was stood in full view in Japanese-themed, kimono-styled, attire, purchased for a murder mystery night in the early 90’s, and now, much like it’s owner, slightly faded with age and frayed at the edges. Still, I think I pulled it off with a certain panache.

It turns out there was no fire, but unfortunately an act of vindictive vandalism, and a broken window. Thanks, idiot.

There may have been no flames, but I did look damn hot. Oh yeah.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on the 28th of June 2013, where it was retitled 'Dawn excitement a flash in the pan' which only plays further into the sweaty hands of the Sister-in-law reference. On this occasion, I definitely think my original title was better. You can read the version used by the paper here It in fact only has the second, slightly risque, part of the flashing/visible hoses joke removed. To protect the innocent, assumingly.

(Fresh through the letterbox of Grumpy Towers this week was Sparks' "Extended - The 12inch Mixes (1979-1984)" - currently doing significant disco-based damage via headphones. Chuffing awesome it is too...)