Sugar and Spice

It was one of those mornings. It was so cold you could see the air. It was white. It was frozen. It was surreal. It was Saturday - the day when a significant segment of the population has the option of staying curled up in bed until the sun takes over,

At eight-thirty, I was on my way to the town hall with budget binders so cumbersome they needed to be transported in a valise on wheels.

I am not joyful. Number crunching is not my favourite occupation.

I have not had breakfast. There will be fresh fruit and muffins and juice and coffee and tea at the town hall. I am a creature of habit and it is not my usual but as long as the tea breads are freshly baked, I can be enticed by a continental breakfast. I arrive with time to gather sustenance and have it on the table before work begins.

Alas, for the second Saturday the muffins are not a freshly baked selection. There are cinnamon buns, tiny, pallid, damp, doughy replicas of the real thing, baked in paper cups. The muffins are small, unidentifiable and to all outward appearances, have never seen the inside of an oven. They could have been steamed.

I am steamed. If I can't have the real thing, I don't want anything at all.

If I am out for a dreary day of number-crunching, the least I have a right to expect is a real cinnamon bun; a large square section of egg and yeast dough which has been rolled up with a combination of raisins and cinnamon, cut into segments and stuffed tightly into a deep pan, liberally coated with melted butter and brown sugar and baked into a crisp dark brown toffee brittle coating... served with butter for those who prefer it.

I don't expect them to be warm. I don't expect the room to be filled with the heavenly aroma of cinnamon buns baking . I expect to be respected. Pale pallid replicas of French tea breads do not bring out the best in me. Offered in place of the real thing, they make me downright testy.

It is not a good start to the day and the first item on the business agenda is an e-mail from a citizen. He has a suggestion. We should reverse an increase in councillors' remuneration which was of such a singular dimension, I had not noticed a difference.

He is not on hand at the meeting to argue his point. He’s probably curled up cozily in his little cot in his little house dreaming of warm sticky cinnamon buns, fresh from the oven, filling the house with their fragrance, little knowing the dangerous nature of the thoughts winging their way across the white frosty air towards him from the direction of the town hall.

Safe in his little bed is the best place for him to be.