Mud is many things to many people.

A housewives' curse and children's blessing; both work inducer and play provider. On with rubber gloves or out with bucket and spade.

It is an indicator of drought. Eager news reader's show clips of reservoirs, whose banks are cracked with gaping wounds and baked fish.

As an object of adult amusement it partners with skimpy underwear to provide slippery titillation for gawping crowds and lonesome, secretive teenagers.

A child's feast, a pie fit for a king; best eaten wet - in new clothes.

It’s a revenue stream for car wash owners who grin when the sky clouds over and as a beauty product it takes money from the mad.

Pigs root through it; dogs walk it through and birds' bathe. Most everything we eat grows in it and what doesn’t lives on it.

Mud is many things to many people.