Regular readers of the SUFFOLK GAZETTE will recall how we reported on a local old person who mistook some birdshit on her car windscreen for a Chinese spy balloon. Well now, the same demented old crone has told us how this time, she spotted the northern lights illuminating the Suffolk night sky.

The northern lights – a natural phenomenon caused by solar flares erupting on the Sun – are usually one visible from Scotland and other strange foreign countries, but over the past week, they have been thrilling insomniacs across East Anglia.

Mary Delaney (81) from Kettlebaston, W.Suffolk told us:

“Hello. What’s that luv? A what? Rory’s bored at his auntie’s? Is he?”

No. Aurora borealis. You said you saw it?

“Oh, yes. Silly me. I get confused you see, dear.”

We know. Did you see it or not?

“Yes… yes. I saw it alright. It was about 3am – in the morning. I was watching some taped episodes of Wogan on the telly. It was the one where…”

Stop! The northern lights. What did they look like?

“Oh. Well it was the one with Rod Stewart where he asked Terry to swap seats so the camera could catch his good side, and I looked out the window, and there it was. Well, I can tell you, it was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen – well, apart from when I saw Joe Longthorne do Shirley Bassey at the Blackpool Grand in 1986. Masterful.”

Jesus. Will you tell us about the lights… PLEASE?

“OK, luv. Hang on a minute, my daughter’s calling me… Aaargh, I get so confused when I have two calls at the same time. Hang on… Margaret? Oh well. She’s gone. What was it, luv?”

FFS. The northern lights.

“Oh, yes. I was looking out of the window with Wogan on in the background, and the lights. Oooh, the lights, they lit up the sky, they did. A beautiful pink colour. A very vibrant, luminous pink, spread all across the sky. It was… it was… it was…”

Dazzling?

“No. It was…”

Spellbinding?

“No. It was…”

Breathtaking?

“No. It was…”

What then?

“It was… pink.”

FFS. Then what happened.

“Well, that’s the funny thing. I like to eat sausage rolls when I’m watching telly in bed you see., Y’know, Greggs ones. I won’t eat any of the other shit the supermarkets make. I eat ‘em even though they’re not good for me. It’s the wind. Indigestion. Its crippling. So what I do is, I drink Gaviscon. Ooooh do I drink Gaviscon?! Ha ha ha!”

What does Gaviscon have to do with it?

“Well, I’m a bit old you see, dear, and I live in a bit of a hovel. Its not exactly tidy around here. Its a little bit of a mess. Margaret says she’s going to write to Hoarders. You know… that telly series about mentally ill people living in mountains of their own shit that they cant throw away. That’s me! So like I say, I get in a bit of a messy muddle sometimes and that’s when it happened.”

When what happened?

“Well, I was glugging on the Gaviscon, standing at the window, looking at the northern lights when I noticed that the lights were dripping a little.”

Dripping?

“Yes, dripping… a little. So I thought ‘that’s strange’, so I looked a bit closer. I leaned in to the window pane. I could smell something and the lights were definitely dripping. So I put my finger on the window pane and dragged it across the lights. Then, I sniffed my finger and then licked it.”

Good God. What was it?

“Gaviscon. It was GAVISCON! That’s when I remembered… the pink lights weren’t the northern lights at all. They were the Gaviscon that I had coughed over the window the night before! What am I like?”

Lord, have mercy.