SIR.

With my spirits high I decided to go for a walk with my dog.

I won't look at the mounds of rubbish that people throw on the floor, (my husband and I do collect rubbish from time to time), the used condoms or the dog poop that other dog owners leave even though there are poop bins for them to use. Nothing can ruin our walk.

Wrong!

Returning from my walk, I was at a dead end at this point. I saw two men ahead of me who were sat at a bench making a roll-up.

In-between doing this task they were spitting and 'snotting' (I am not sure what the correct terminology for this gross act is but I have seen footballers and rugby players doing it on the TV).

There was little space to pass by the men and their 'droppings' and as they had quite clearly seen me approaching I thought that they would refrain from doing this until I had passed.

This was not the case so I decided to pick my dog up and walk by them. When asked by them "Why had I picked my dog up?" I smiled and said that I picked him up as "I couldn't find a route through their spit and snottings".

I even gave them a tissue. The tissue was thrown on the floor. I was gruffly told to "hurry up and walk on", as I did. One of the men then shouted after me and I turned around to see him turn his back to me pull down his trousers and say "I'm now going to leave you a great big s**t for later".

These were not young men, probably about late 20, although they were dressed in a young way.

What could I do or say?

Confront them? Not a good idea.

Ring the police? By the time the police had arrived the men would have been long gone and perhaps this is a waste of police resources?

So I went home, cried a little, made a cuppa and looked online for treadmills for dogs.

Bullies 1, 51-year-old woman and dog 0.

(Name and address supplied)