The Brexit bunting that decorates the No-Unauthorised-Vehicles car park is tangled and twisted

The Brexit bunting that decorates the No Unauthorised Vehicles car park is tangled and twisted, the few bits of it that remain free to flap, do so with vigour. At the house opposite, the woman with the cheesecloth blouse, enormous fluffy cat shaped slippers and the carrier bag full of soiled kitty litter is being followed down her garden path by an actual cat. 

It’s warm, bright and blustery. The man in his late 20s in the flat cap and florid trousers is carrying an aubergine and a tin of sardines to his BMW.

The driver of the Audi S4 throws a half-eaten pasty out of the window, almost hitting the woman who is walking past the Top Spot snooker club in knee length boots and a fleece jacket with wolf pictures on it.

I continue on past the sign that says Achieve Your Ambition Car Wash Open. Past the sparrow pecking at the base of the lamppost with gaffer tape wrapped around it to keep the inspection cover shut. Past the soon to be closed down museum that we all visited as kids—they have a stuffed waxwing from 1970.

The wheelie-bins on the new estate are the same shade of green as the fake plastic topiary in the gardens.

In the rubber scented car showroom, half-a-dozen grey haired customers in anoraks and shorts are sitting by the water cooler watching a wall-mounted television; a grey-haired man with swollen legs is being wired up to a heart monitor on the hospital channel.

On, into the village. It’s quiet apart from the blackbirds, the jackdaws and the occasional thrum of a 4x4. There are pansies, pelargoniums, No Cold Callers, Our Glorious Dead, goldfinches, martens, Sunday painters, misanthropic cows, and Slow Children Playing.

Later, back in town, a man comments that I have good legs for kickboxing.

As he left the house where the pointing has been patched with expanding foam...

As he left the house where the pointing has been patched with expanding foam, the man in the black tracksuit top with white trim stumbled over the soiled nappies on the doorstep. He kicked at them in frustration and then stuck two fingers up at the twelve-month-old baby girl who was dribbling over the shoulder of the young woman with the home-dyed ponytail as she made her way down the steps in front of him.

Out on the main road, two other young women with home-dyed ponytails had braved the sub-zero weather conditions to have a fist fight in the middle of the street. They both successfully landed several punches to each other's heads while screaming abuse and tearing at one another's vest tops. Two men in bare feet and flip-flops gingerly picked their way around them—and the ice—on their way to the bus stop.

In the rec' behind the house with seven cars on the drive and nobody ever at home, another man in a black tracksuit top with white trim had pulled down the tyre from the swing and was throwing it at his Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

I saw the flock of waxwings in the church gardens again; the fourth day running.

A car squealed noisily past on Old House Lane. The man stood holding a baby...

A car squealed noisily past and the man holding the baby on his doorstep glanced up and said “His fan belt’s slipping isn’t it, eh?” He looked down at the baby and widened his eyes, “Yeees! Is his fan belt slipping? It is, isn’t it? His fan belt’s slipping. Yeees,” he said.

A woman was walking towards me in the street when she stopped abruptly, pulled out her earphones and said “Did you see that?”

“What?” I said.

She pointed across the road to a black cat sat under a cherry tree. “That cat just chased a squirrel across the road, it had hold of its tail but it got away! Look it’s up in the tree”.

Next to the chip shop—which, according to the note masking taped to the door, is ‘closed Due to ill health although Peter's Computers which operates out of the same building is accessible via a telephone number provided’—I saw a flock of about thirty waxwings in a rowan tree.

I was edging up a garden path, between an overflowing wheely-bin and a pile of dog shit when I tore my trousers on a rusty old fridge.

An old man shouted me from across the street, "Postman!" he said sternly. I made my way over to him.

"When are you going to deliver my bus pass!"

"Er..."

"It's been a week now!" said the man angrily.

"A week since what?" I asked.

"Since I went down to the bus station and filled in the card. They had a fiver off me and I've heard nowt from them since!"

"Have they definitely posted it?" I asked.

"How should I know?" said the man.

I saw the waxwings again. This time they were in the tree by the flats where the skinny Asian man with the grey jeans and studded belt was trying to gain access by shouting Raymond! (see video).