So, the other day we went to the mail sorting office in Hull.
This wasn't a day trip, allow me to elucidate, rather it was a journey in order to obtain one of the many parcels that my wife orders, probably of materials needed as part of her burgeoning Etsy shop (www.denkaidesigns.com). All of the parcels seem to have one thing in common, that being that none of them fit through a letter box, and as the postman carefully times his deliveries to coincide with when no one is in the house, they end up back at the sorting office for me to collect.
Opposite the sorting office is some metal railings, from which you can look down into a muddy bit of the River Hull - back in the day it was probably some form of boat dock, but now it's just a load of mud. My son decided to have a look through the railings at the muddy water for a minute, and not being in a particular rush, I joined him.
After a couple of seconds of looking at trolleys stuck in the mud (the nearest supermarket must be at least half a mile away - someone must have gone to a lot of effort to dump a trolley here) a helpful voice from behind us broke the silence.
"Excuse me - it's not very clean over there!"
I turned to see a chap addressing us. I thanked him for his advice, and turned back to my son to tell him that it was about time to go to the sorting office.
The helpful voice sounded again.
"Yeah, I'm talking Weil's disease."
I turned around, surprised that he hadn't walked on, and once again I thanked him for his advice, although it did cross my mind that from the first piece of advice it hadn't been a massive leap of imagination to conjure up the possibility that he had been talking about some sort of infection, so the second piece was, to my mind, superfluous. Again, I turned back to my son to ask him to come to the sorting office.
And yet, there was more to come.
"I would get his hands washed sharpish if I were you!"
Of course, I'm certain that the fellow was only giving advice in order to protect my son. A nice gesture. A helpful human being, by any account.
As a result I didn't even get my son to rub his hands on him, obviously with the man being so concerned with his well being I can only assume he'd be more than happy to have any germs removed by liberally scrubbing my sons hands on his face. Always think twice before acting, that's what I say.
