Saturday 16 March 2019

On my way into work at 5.45am I am engaged in conversation by a tall thin man with no teeth



On my way into work at 5.45am I am engaged in conversation by a tall thin man with no teeth. It’s 3°C and raining steadily. He’s wearing espadrilles, tracksuit pants and a torn and faded navy blue anorak. He says he hopes it’s going to be a hot day so that there’ll be loads of babes in bikinis wondering around town.

Twenty-past six, half light, and the ducks are arse up in the pond. The blackbirds that are flitting around in the park aren’t blackbirds at all, they are leaves blown by the swirling wind; I’m not wearing my specs because of the rain.

At the junction where the puddles turn from red to amber to green, I can smell cat piss.

10.30am, I deliver a parcel to a man of about sixty. He's wearing a beige zip-up raglan cardigan with suedette detailing around the shoulder and a pair of brown check pleat-front polyester trousers. I hand him my PDA and he tries to write on the wrong part of the screen. He peers at the tip of the stylus, turns it round, attempts to write with the other end, and then hands it back to me saying “Your pen’s run out, lad. Have you got another?”

In the low sun the automatic gates of the big houses cast their long palisade shadows the full width of the road around the park.

There’s a discarded Wellington boot on the pavement at the junction with Westridge Drive.

A nuthatch climbs out from one of the nesting boxes that have been fastened to the trees on the perimeter of the park.

The skeleton of the pheasant on the steps of the stone bungalow looks as though it’s been there for some time.

It’s blustery and the caravan dealer’s Bailey and Sterling flags flutter in all directions at once. Inside, men in their 50s, 60s and 70s wear their anoraks and generous poly-cotton chinos to browse the portable barbecues, foldaway windbreaks and stacks of plastic crockery. They are accompanied by women in Ecco shoes and waterfall cardigans that flap wildly around their heads the moment they step back outside into the weather.

Doorstep diorama of the day: a statuette of three puppies holding up a sign saying ‘Welcome’ arranged next to a small potted shrub festooned with Christmas decorations, a small bag of dog shit, and a statuette of a meerkat wearing cricket whites