Saturday 24 June 2017

It’s raining, a strong breeze is swinging the phone cables and occasional gusts blow litter past me in the road.



It’s raining, a strong breeze is swinging the phone cables and occasional gusts blow litter past me in the road. I walk up the hill behind the man with the Viking hair and beard who is wearing pyjamas and slippers.

In the park, the big man in his twenties with analeptic leg shakes and an eagle print T-shirt is sitting on a bench smoking weed. He’s listening to some reggae influenced pop music on speaker-phone and his attempts to sing along elicit only occasional growls and shouts of elongated hybrid vowels.

Outside the care home the couch grass between the flags of the pavement has dried yellow since the council treated it at the beginning of the week. in the car park, staff in waterproofs sit on the kerb smoking cigarettes and drinking mugs of tea

I pass the garden where hundreds of small succulents are displayed. They are housed in dozens of planters which have been made from pieces of silver birch and attached to the rails of the perimeter fence with expanding foam. The big forty-odd year old man with the homemade face tattoo appears on a small child's bike. I wonder whether he's trying to intimidate me when he starts pulling shit wheelies in the road and grunting like a wild animal. He has a big gold chain around his neck and most of his arse crack is showing

Starlings squawk from the guttering

Later, on the semi-detached suburban estate where people wear Crocs to chamois their Skoda Yetis, the plastic topiary has bleached in the sun leaving it a psychedelic turquoise against the acid green of the fake lawns.

On the edge of the estate, the new owners of the farm house have replaced the broken Land Rover Defender and the piles of cow shit on the drive with a brace of high performance German saloons and a statue of the Buddha.
Windowsill survey:
A scented candle
A small porcelain model of a flower barrow
A porcelain goose and gosling
A ceramic lighthouse
A hedgehog ornament made from a pine cone
A basket of colourful silk roses
A small clay model of a terrace of houses
An ornamental statuette of a couple kissing, their intertwined bodies making the shape of a love heart.
A scented candle inside a small bird cage
A piece of MDF painted white with the word ‘Love’ cut out of it.
A vase of daffodils
A dead pelargonium
An empty jam jar
Two silk gerberas in a milk bottle
Two Christmas cacti
Two brass effect resin rabbit ornaments
An ornamental tea pot and kettle
More silk gerberas
A kind of imitation Fabergé egg on a gold effect stand
A white porcelain dolphin
A pair of ornamental statuettes of topless women holding tea lights
A glass vase filled with colourful glass beads and two silk gerbera

A book leant against the window displaying the cover: We May Not Have It All Together But Together We Have It All.
A boxer dog (a real one)