TERRY – not his real name for reasons you will quickly learn – is usually the most affable of men, always ready for a laugh. But this week the smile had gone.

“You’re the last person I wanted to see today,” he said resignedly. “It will be all over the papers before the cock crows thrice.” (Terry frequently resorts to Biblical quotes when making a point.) “I can’t think why you imagine that,” I said theatrically. “You see lots of people carrying horses down Bridge Street.”

“I knew it!” cried this retired postman. “I knew you’d take the you-know-what.”

The ‘horse’ was a large balloon in the shape of a silk-and-ribbon-decorated pony. It was the size of a Shetland foal, awkward to carry rather than heavy on this breezy morning.

“Is it a new game?” I inquired with feigned innocence.

“No!” he replied. “It’s for my five-year-old grand-daughter. She wants to be the next Zara Phillips.”

“Why didn’t you buy it flat? You could have blown it up at home,” I suggested.

“I don’t have a pump and I haven’t enough puff to fill one leg, let alone the whole body,” he confessed as a strong gust of wind threatened to take him and his steed past an imaginary winning post outside Blackwell’s music shop. “Anyway, I’m taking it straight round to her home.”

“Perhaps a book on equestrianism for beginners would have been better,” I said trying – albeit not very hard – to be helpful.

“What sort of lousy grandad gives the apple of his eye a boring book when she wants a horsey balloon?” he said as we parted.

How non-driving Terry was greeted by the driver and passengers of a Rose Hill-bound bus I have yet to learn. But I don’t think I helped his demeanour by calling ‘Tally Ho!’ as he wandered along Turl Street.

  • TALKING of which, the Turl Street Kitchen, that relatively new eating house where the atmosphere hangs heavy with intellect, is offering prosecco at half price to those undergraduates wearing a red carnation.

“What about those with a white bloom?” I asked one of the staff.

“Red carnations only,” she said. “Those taking their finals – first and second year students will have to wait.”

  • YOU’RE always sure of a warm welcome from the staff of Lush, the environment-friendly cosmetics shop in Cornmarket Street. So it was not surprising to hear sustained female laughter coming from that store.

Glancing inside I saw at least half a dozen teenage French girls enjoying a display of soap bubble blowing by no less a person than the manager, Lawrii.

A bowl of water and some must-have substance for an ever-young complexion were his only props.

That’s what I call imaginative promotion.