Sunday 23 January 2011

A car squealed noisily past on Old House Lane. The man stood holding a baby...



A car squealed noisily past and the man holding the baby on his doorstep glanced up and said “His fan belt’s slipping isn’t it, eh?” He looked down at the baby and widened his eyes, “Yeees! Is his fan belt slipping? It is, isn’t it? His fan belt’s slipping. Yeees,” he said.

A woman was walking towards me in the street when she stopped abruptly, pulled out her earphones and said “Did you see that?”
“What?” I said.
She pointed across the road to a black cat sat under a cherry tree. “That cat just chased a squirrel across the road, it had hold of its tail but it got away! Look it’s up in the tree”.

Next to the chip shop—which, according to the note masking taped to the door, is ‘closed Due to ill health although Peter's Computers which operates out of the same building is accessible via a telephone number provided’—I saw a flock of about thirty waxwings in a rowan tree.

I was edging up a garden path, between an overflowing wheely-bin and a pile of dog shit when I tore my trousers on a rusty old fridge.

An old man shouted me from across the street, "Postman!" he said sternly. I made my way over to him.
"When are you going to deliver my bus pass!"
"Er..."
"It's been a week now!" said the man angrily.
"A week since what?" I asked.
"Since I went down to the bus station and filled in the card. They had a fiver off me and I've heard nowt from them since!"
"Have they definitely posted it?" I asked.
"How should I know?" said the man.

I saw the waxwings again. This time they were in the tree by the flats where the skinny Asian man with the grey jeans and studded belt was trying to gain access by shouting Raymond! (see video).