No exit

This is ill at-home day for Grit, who is officially worn out, fed up and choking to death on her own swollen throat. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are all at various stages of cough-and-cold too, so I'm declaring our household diseased. We lack only a bell to sound.

At 9pm Grit takes to her bed and contemplates why, in some vulnerable moments, does she feel like the world is against her and why she is so beaten down and lacking in any resources at all. And strangely the memory of this notice pops unbidden into her head, as somehow summing up all that is life.

This notice she saw last Sunday in the ladies changing room at the lake; the changing room which is really a cold metal portacabin of a broken toilet and a disused shower. Because Grit went into this dank, dark and miserable place, slammed the door shut, and turned round to read this notice:


And then Grit pushed hard at the stiff, closed door, looked around, and thought to herself, What whistle?