Sunday 2 November 2014

The camp teenage boy is talking to his companion on the bus



The camp teenage boy is talking to his companion on the bus: “I can tell he’s got a crush on me but if I say owt I know he’s just gonna say ‘I’m not gay!’ in that stupid indignant voice”.

Behind me, the grey-haired hi-vis man has been to the new restaurant that apparently everybody is talking about: “I ordered the lamb but when it came it was all fat. I got one tiny thin slice of meat off the whole piece! I sent it back. I can’t eat that I said, it’s all fat. The woman asked me ‘Do you want to order something else?’ I said, ‘No love, you’ve put me right off my tea now, I’m going home to make myself some beans on toast.’ The chef chased me out into the car park and told me he was going to have word with the butcher but I’ll not be going back”.

I walk down Leeds Road behind a girl in skinny jeans and a black puffer jacket. She’s talking loudly on her phone in Polish, emphasising key points with wild, histrionic hand gestures.

There’s a woman in the Costcutter with ‘Nobody’s Cow’ appliquéd onto her onesie above her breasts. Outside, the man with the piercings is polishing the alloys of his Ford Fiesta with one hand while he smokes some strong weed with the other. He smiles and waves.

Out in the sticks, it’s all long shadows, wood smoke and lavender, starlings on wires, church bells, dried hydrangeas, Kate Bush songs from the open windows of ex farm buildings, wicker-baskets, wellington boots, a possible sighting of a small flock of waxwings and a definite sighting of a huge flock of lapwings.

There are plastic bags in the trees.

I was nearly hit twice by flying objects today: I had to swerve to avoid the soiled nappy that somebody threw from their front door towards the bins without looking*, then at the farm I had to duck under the flight path of an enraged goose. It hissed and honked and flew over the five bar gate at me in a rage. The old farmer ran out and got himself between the goose and me, flapping his arms at it. “It’s a right little bastard this ‘en!” he explained, as he tried to shepherd it back into the yard, “It dun’t like me either, keeps biting me. It’s never flown ovva t’gate before though!”

*This has happened before: http://goo.gl/edTd1A