A dozen or so young women wearing pony tails and predominantly black lycra...

A dozen or so young women wearing pony tails and predominantly black lycra with a single bright accent of either cerise pink, cobalt blue, orange, lime green etc were taking part in an outdoor aerobics session in the park. At the bus stop opposite, an elderly woman in a beige anorak arrived and said to the other elderly woman in a beige anorak, “It’s been a bit of a rush but I’m here now and that’s all that matters”.

In the farm shop car park, a woman in a beige anorak was telling a man in a beige anorak that she couldn’t get anything except Radio 2 on her car stereo. 

“Still?” said the old man, rolling his eyes.

The woman nodded, “I know! After all this time”.

The man waved a walking stick towards the shop entrance and said, “It’s a bit of a walk down there”. 

“I’ll go”, said the woman, “What do you want?”

“A lettuce”, said the man.

A heron flew over Shangri-La, a blackbird picked up a sun-baked slug and bounced it on the driveway at Orchard House and, at Greenside, where the man with the pickaxe said he’d be OK as long as it stayed dry, a Robin was eating some shat-out berries on top of a gate post.

Ernest says his new puppy hasn’t been a bit of bother.

I pulled up too far from the control unit for the entry barrier...

I pulled up too far from the control unit for the entry barrier at the entrance to the technical college. There was a queue of traffic behind me so I couldn't manoeuvre the van any closer. I opened my door and stretched out my arm as far as I could but my foot got tangled in the mat in the footwell and I fell out and onto the street.

Today's squashed wildlife: a frog, a shrew, a slug, two snails, a bee, a squirrel, two earthworms, a wasp, half a starling and a moth*

The woman with the new BMW and the tight jeans was telling her neighbour, a man in cargo pants and a white T-shirt, "When you only pay two, three, four grand for a car it's gonna be a heap of shit."

"I know," said the man,"There was no heated seat, no cd player nor nowt!"

The woman at one of the barn conversions on the moor has pressed her old aerobics step into use as a stand to display her houseplants on. She has created a two-tiered tableau in the big picture window at the front that looks out onto her neighbour's Mitsubishi Animal. Next door, where the garden backs onto acres of idyllic rolling countryside as far as the eye can see, Mrs Moorhouse was pedalling determinedly on the exercise bike she's rigged up in her garage.

Two window cleaners were talking as they dripped suds from their Bedford Rascal to the houses on the estate. "They were good sarnies this morning, you know", said the smaller, thinner, younger of the two who was carrying a bucket and some ladders.

"I still would rather have had a breakfast," said the taller, fatter, older one who was carrying the van keys.

"I know what you're saying", said the younger one.

I knocked at a house with a parcel. I was about to give up waiting when I heard some fumbling around with keys behind the door. After a couple of failed attempts to unlock it, all fell silent again for another minute or so until the occupier returned with what I assumed to be another set of keys. This time, after another couple of attempts, the door finally swung open to reveal a man in a blue towelling bathrobe and his hair stuck up on one side. "Sorry, I was in bed," he said, squinting at the sun. It was then that I looked down at the parcel and realised it was for the house next door.

*the moth was inside a packet of Coco-Pops.