As the weather warms this wide brown land, the burgeoning bloom of Spring bringing with it longer days delicious and dry, it is with trepidation that I sniff the air.
Yes, for something wicked this way comes; a cloud looms portentiously, a shadow expectant and hovering over this very house.
Well, across from this house. Over the road actually.

It comes in the shape of my neighbour, a good neighbour really.
A friendly one.
Rather too friendly.
Unless you have been introduced on a previous occasion, dear reader, I will acquaint you now with Underpants.
That is how he is known round here.
For that is pretty much all he wears.
Everywhere.
Oh, not the tighty whitey kind, no.
Not, and I thank God for this, the Speedo, the Budgie Smuggler, Dick-Sticker variety.
Our Underpants favours instead the Scoop, the short, short scooped boxer-short style.
Offering maximum sun exposure, while gently disguising any sneaky running tackle displays, they ride high and loose on the thigh, nestled snugly under the deeply tanned, presumably leather-like belly folding rather sadly over the waistband. Above it all loom the greying chest hairs and saggy man breasts fighting stoicly against an inevitable journey south.
Indeed, it is brazen. It is a middle finger against our gentle sensibilities, a brown eye at the establishment and, while I want to applaud his brave stand against the hourglass, while I battle to embrace his bold bohemian bravado, his cavalier charge against the march of time, I must admit it is the damned awkwardness that is the problem.
Not only does he flaunt his flesh, he flashes it incessantly.
Indeed, it is always there.
Underpants is always there.

As I manoevre my way to the car he is mowing the lawn. He is mowing the lawn again. He is pulling at some weeds. He is tweaking the flowers. He is cleaning his car. He is sweeping his driveway. He is collecting the mail. He is just standing there. He is cleaning his wife's car. He is wandering into someones garden. He is mowing the lawn. Again. He is calling out to his children up the street. Loudly.
He is pulling something off our grass. He is talking to someone in their driveway, from ours. Loudly.
God. Is he mowing the lawn, again?
Yes.
Indeed yes. He is there.
He is always there.
And always in the underpants.

Warm weather is an open invitation to near nakedness. Underpants rolls in his own grass clippings with unabashed glee as the tshirts and singlets of colder seasons lay abandoned in a joyous embrace of the sun's rays.
I suspect that, even as I write, our neighbours are preparing, both mentally and physically, for the prospect of such prolonged, semi-naked cavorting over the next six months.

I too am prepared, dear reader.
For I am Agent Minx, slippery and sly, subversive and oh so deliciously secret.
Behind the limestone walls of my courtyard, I skulk and lurk in a fashion enigmatic, my travels to the mailbox conducted in the manner of a reconnaissance mission, ducking and weaving similar forays from the other side of the road.
Indeed, weeds are pulled in the shadows, gardening done by gaslight, cars cleaned and appointments kept under the cover of darkness. And the curtains are closed.
Ha ha! How I love to make a mockery of this full frontal assault.

But alas, as the sun sets at the end of our street, lo, I glimpse, from my vantage point behind the courtyard walls, a flash of silver hair glistening in the fading light.
There is no sunshine, yet there he remains, Scoops flaring and grey chest hairs rippling in the evening breeze, standing sentinel at the end of his driveway, meerkat like, poised and ready.

Ah, something wicked this way comes.
Indeed, and Underpants is ready.
Perhaps he'll hear his name upon the breeze now and take himself inside.