THE purple ball shot across Cornmarket Street followed by a blond, curly-haired, 20-month-old boy in a diminutive red tracksuit.

While the ball miraculously missed the busy Tuesday morning crowd, the lad made contact with a few legs and the odd pram before squaring up to again kick the ball across the street and follow it with an excited yell.

Meanwhile dad tried to keep up, but was hampered by the boy’s pushchair into which he vainly hoped his son and heir would climb and sleep.

No chance. He was having a fine time. What made the scene all the more delightful was that many people were eager to join in (perhaps there is some by-law forbidding football in this pedestrianised area; if so, the two police community support officers turned a blind eye, perhaps realising interference would earn howls of disapproval).

Suddenly the lad kicked the ball through the open door of the Next store. Was this the end of the game? Not a bit of it. Seconds later a woman member of staff showed high heels and a tight skirt were no bar to volleying the ball to the feet of the boy with accuracy that David Beckham would have admired.

* MOST people when taking a holiday prefer to get as far from their place of work as is humanly possible. Not so Jonathan Barnett.

He is on the maintenance staff at Helen and Douglas House.

While contractors build a new block for the hospice, this man from Los Angeles is painting 150 feet of white boards that surrounds the site. Many aspects of what goes on at the house, and beyond, to make life special for the children and young people whose life expectancy is limited, will be depicted.

Jonathan was a muralist in the USA, (“What’s a muralist?” I asked. “Someone who paints murals,” he explained) and he saw possibilities for the boards. His only problem is that the weather might cause delays; he has only until this weekend to get it finished. Then it’s back to work.

* THE elderly woman in New Inn Hall Street resembled my long-gone Great Aunt Maud, a lady of style and poise well into her 80s.

She approached briskly, eyeing with disdain a vehicle partly parked on the pavement. She moved nearer the wall to pass. Unfortunately a bicycle was chained to a drain pipe and her left shin struck the protruding pedal.

Suddenly the air was rent by language that would have made a sailor blush; basic Anglo-Saxon further seasoned by the stuff restricted to the post-9pm watershed.

Was she hurt, I asked? Her reply lost none of its fruitiness.

The similarity between her and Great Aunt Maud evaporated.