Mr Simpson gave me a lift to work in his new car...

Mr Simpson gave me a lift to work in his new car with the de-mister that comes on when he literally tells it too. I told Julie about it at work and she said Mr Simpson has five sugars in his tea. 

This week’s wildlife of note:

A woodpecker, a jay, some lapwings, a lark, rabbits, deer, a dead fox, some chickens, up to two dozen black labradors, numerous koi carp and two plastic heron (one stood up and one lying down on its side)

The chickens at the farm were pecking at the dog's bone while the builders listened to People Are People by Depeche Mode on their heavy duty radio.

I couldn’t get up Hill Top because of the two rival dog walker’s vans that had parked to collect their charges from houses on opposite sides of the street.

Mr Briggs pulled up to tell me he’d just heard on the news that the cheapest petrol station in town is the Jet garage at Lockwood.

The woman in the trench coat asked “Is it going to make a nice day, do you think?”

“I’m not sure but it’s looking good at the minute” I replied.

“I know, but will it last?” said the woman.

No Surprises by Radiohead has been going round my head all week. Today I think I worked out why; several of the door bell chimes on my delivery sound like the song’s opening two notes.

Mr Briggs intercepted me for his mail...

There’s a copy of The Watchtower magazine pinned to the front door of one of the back-to-backs. Someone has scrawled across Jesus’ face in biro, “NOT INTERESTED, ONE WORD FREE WILL!”

As we watch the police moving the drunks along in the park, Michael tells me he once saw a man staggering down the street with a bottle in his hand and another two in the pockets of his coat. He says he watched the man’s expression turn from horror to relief as the bottle
in his hand had slipped onto the floor but hadn’t broken. But then, as he bent down to pick it up, the bottles from his pockets fell out and smashed all over the pavement and his expression had turned to one of bewildered anguish.

The swallows are swooping after the flies that buzz around the cow shit on the track down to the farm. I make my way up to the house and knock at the door. The air is fetid and still, hung thick with the stench of pig shit. A woman with a grey bob and plastic-rimmed glasses opens the door. She winces and says “Oh! What a foul smell!” Then, with one hand over her nose, she grabs the parcel from me and shuts the door behind her without saying goodbye.

The man who is brewing beer in his garden and doesn’t wear a shirt says hello.

I stand on a dead mouse and, after several minutes of trying, I can’t get the worst of it out from the tread of my shoes.

Mr Briggs intercepted me for his mail outside the old hall in Stile village...

Mr Briggs intercepted me for his mail outside the old vicarage. He asked me where the regular postman was and I said he was off work with an upset stomach. "One of our lads had the shits last week" said Mr Briggs. And without pausing for a response he said "Right, I'm going”, and he sped off, spinning the wheels of his Bedford Rascal on the greasy old millstone setts.

I drove down the narrow track to Springwood End sending dog walkers scurrying to gather up their pets. The man with the Grayson Perry hairdo and the double-denim efficiently wrangled his King Charles but struggled for a while with his long-haired dachshund. The two men in hunters caps, puffa jackets and green wellies had no problem with their brown labrador but the man with the gilet, the Dalmation and the iPod couldn’t hear me, so I had to drive most of the way at walking pace.

On the way back up, another man with a brown labrador flagged me down to ask whether I could spare any elastic bands.

My first (and only) sighting of a person under the age of retirement today was the builder who is converting the barn on the edge of the moor. His yellow and black heavy-duty site radio was playing Baggy Trousers by Madness while he stood with his hand down the front of his trousers talking to the woman with the brown labrador, the NY ski hat and the cerise pink walking socks. He was telling her how much he enjoyed reading books about the 2nd world war: “It could be anything from somebody's memoirs to an account of a battle. As long as it's not fiction, I'm not arsed about that" he explained.

On my way into work I saw a bat, an owl, the short woman with the sweat shirt...

On my way into work, I see a bat, an owl, the short woman with the sweatshirt and the peroxide perm who goes through the bins in the park and, on the pavement outside the Mortgage Introducer and International Flights shop on John William Street, a women’s block-heeled boot.

At the house with the broken porch, a boy of about three or four is sitting on the window sill wearing nothing but a nappy and drinking milk from a baby bottle. I knock at the door and a thin woman in her forties with braces on her teeth flings it open and shouts “Toilet!” She looks surprised and then explains “Oh sorry love, I thought you were someone else”.

Mr Briggs intercepts me in his Suzuki Carry. He asks whether I’ve ever toured Scotland by coach. I say I haven’t. He tells me his wife saw an advert in The Examiner: “Up one side and down the other. Five hotels in a week!” Mr Briggs goes on at some length about his reservations about coach travel. “A sore arse... compulsory seat belts... steamed-up windows that you can’t see out of... the lack of decent toilet facilities... If you get sat next to a knobhead...” and so forth. “I said all this to her”, he explains, “but she’d already gone and booked it, hadn’t she? Her and Barbara had cooked it up together, hadn’t they? So the four of us went together: me, the missus and Gary and Barbara. And do you know what?” says Mr Briggs looking up at me from over his wire rims. “What?” I say. “We had a real time! It was fantastic! We’ve been another, one, two, three, four times since!” He tells me about some of the exploits they’ve had. “They’re only allowed to drive for a couple of hours at a time these days so we always have the chance to have a coffee or a tea”. And how he’d got around the “seat belt problem”. “If you plug the belt into the thing before you get into your seat and then just sit on it, the driver’s alarm doesn’t go off. He’d had to tell me a couple of times over the tannoy before I figured that out.” Mr Briggs chuckles and does an impression of the bus driver, “Passenger number forty-four, could you fasten your belt please!” I tell Mr Briggs that I once travelled from London to Paris by coach and I found it quite tough going. I start to elaborate with an amusing anecdote from the journey but he cuts me short. “Anyway, I’m off to Leeds now” he says, and he drives away".