I was behind the shed , just tipping my vegetable offcuts and egg shells into the compost  bin, when I heard the neighbour at the front of the house discussing something with someone else, I later discovered was my other neighbour, one on each side see. I’d finished the tipping and no one had heard me, i’m usually keen to talk to the neighbours but had a skinful the night before and so was happy to just stay behind the fence, and ignore what pleasantries they were talking about, we’ed only lived here a few months, chat was strictly platonic and vacuous; weather, gardens and snagging, new estate so there’s a collective irritation with the developers.

But as the voices drifted over, tasteful innocuous chat, the sort of which I really couldn’t tell you what the hell they were on about, I suddenly became aware in my hungover fog, that a) I was getting cold in my pyjamas, and b) I was aware their chat had moved up a gear. And now I was accutely aware that any movement I made could give me away as a snooper, a nosy neightbour as house mates A and B spoke about swinging and the clubs local to here. I had no idea there were any swingers clubs close to anywhere, let alone here although I was aware of a swingers festival close to Malvern, which isn’t a million miles away, I’d seen an awful Daily Mirror article about it.

It seems the official insignia/logo of the swingers; the Pampas grass outside the front of their house, is becoming a bit of an issue for the new breed of swingers, the so called “Brown Fingered” ones, which conjures up all sorts of inappropriate images, but which, I believe, refers to the new swingers inability to grow plants; anything really but namely pampas grasses outside their house or in the cracks between their patio slabs, and so it has apparently been decided by the SCAB (Swingers Clubs About Britain) an unfortunate acronym I think you’d agree. So simply the SCAB has suggested an enamel badge to wear instead of the pampas. The pampas still stands, of course, for the retro Swingers, but the badge should open up the practice to people who live in flats as well as house dwellers, and enormous untapped market.

“And so now, you just have to pop your keys into the clay cruse in the centre of the table, and the honey-trap is set” he chuckled conspirationally.

It was then when I sneezed…loudly; I can’t help it. And shuffled off around the side of the shed, life may be slightly awkward around here for a little while.