May 4

Anyone in a hoodie over the age of fifteen must be totally mental, thought the thirty year old father pushing his three year old son to a birthday party.

This thought had been triggered by seeing a man on the other side of the road; an elderly man in a grey and white-stripped top with a hood pulled up. The man had a thick moustache like a First World War general.

Bloody nutter, thought the father turning the corner. He yawned. The 4.30am starts were getting him down. Bloody nutter taking that job on, he thought.

Suddenly there was shouting. ‘Hey! Hey!’ The father looked back and saw the elderly hooded man crossing the road at speed.

Christ, thought the father. The nutter’s after me. The father speeded up. ‘Almost there,’ he told his son who was sucking happily away on a dummy.

‘Hey, this is yours, this is yours,’ said the elderly hoodie. The father stopped and turned. The elderly hoodie was holding up a bag of sweets. ‘You dropped it, you dropped it.’

‘No mate, no thanks,’ said the father dismissively, not looking at the sweets but at the thick moustache.

‘I saw them drop off,’ insisted the elderly hoodie, froth coming from his fat lips and sticking in his moustache.

Shield the kid, shield the kid, thought the father. And then he realized. The sweets were his. Well, correction, his son’s. ‘Ummm, right. Yeah, thanks.’ The father reached out and the elderly hoodie gave him the sweets.

The elderly hoodie nodded and walked back up the road.

The father started walking and pushing again. And thinking. Bloody hoodie nutter, he thought.