I woke up early because every car on our street had been smashed up and broken into...

I woke up early because every car on our street had been smashed up and broken into—ours had been stolen. Luckily, it was only a dream.

I passed three piles of vomit on my way into work.

I was following a man carrying an overloaded Sainsbury’s bag into town. At the bottom of Fitzwilliam Street he wandered into the middle of the road and stooped to inspect a discarded Richmond Superkings packet. When he realised it was empty, he booted it across the road and continued on his way, rounding the corner under the railway bridge. As the Superking man disappeared from view, beard-on-beard-off man appeared, striding purposefully in the opposite direction whilst making a noise like a sheep.

I passed an old classmate in the street. I haven’t seen him for about twenty years. “Hi, how are you doing?” I said, reaching out to shake his hand.

“Not so bad” he said, and he pulled on his cigarette and carried on walking.

In the road by the school, the PE class were on a cross country run. The sturdily built teacher with her hair in a bun and white polo shirt tucked into black tracksuit trousers was berating the half a dozen chubby stragglers: “Power walk, C’mon! Put you arms into it! POWER WALK!

A white Transit van pulled up next me. The driver leant across and wound down the window. “Mate!” he yelled, “Which way is it back to where I just was?”

The man at No.1 has sprayed his letter box gold in honour of the Olympic Games. I posted his mail and, as I turned to walk back up the path, a sparrow flew into the back of my leg.

It’s been a few years since the last one, but I saw another headless pigeon corpse today.

On the way into work, I followed a man wrapped in a pink Winnie the Pooh duvet down Stanley Road.

On the way into work, I followed a man who was wrapped in a pink Winnie the Pooh duvet along Heaton Road. Further down, where the KIA Shuma with “Driven by one seriously mad bitch” written across its boot usually parks, I passed two young men in hooded tops. They were in animated conversation relating to one another their parts in a violent altercation. 

Arranged on the pavement outside the roller-shutter doors of the open market, were six candles burning in highball glasses where a victim of the “mass brawl” on Bank Holiday Monday had been found.

On the bus, I’d assumed the old woman next to me was talking to herself, but it turned out she was commenting on the weather to me. I apologised and agreed that it had felt a bit cooler of late. Suddenly, the man wearing the tracksuit and holding a half-length mirror a few seats in front of us started ranting at nobody in particular. Most of what he was shouting was incoherent, but the phrases “Make an appointment to see yourself!” and “Have a fucking word with yourself!” were conspicuous. I exchanged a glance with the old woman and she raised her eyebrows and bit her bottom lip. When the man got off a few stops later, the old woman said she’d seen it all now.

The sun is out and the streets are filled with girls in leggings, texting.

The sun is out and the streets are filled with girls in leggings, texting. 

At the first house I went to, the garden gate fell off in my hand, at the second, the weight of the opened gate pulled its post from its mounting and, at the third, the flap of the letter-box fell off and landed in the cat’s drinking water. 

A military veteran in a blazer and a drunk in a matted fleece jacket were at the bus stop. They both had the same style long grey beard and moustache. At the next bus stop down, a young man in a hooded top was pretending to fight with the metal post that displays the timetable.

An old VW Golf came clanking noisily around the corner. The rear seats were folded down and the load space was packed with rubble and bits of old pallet, the weight of which had lowered the car’s suspension. The car pulled over and a young couple got out. He handed her his on-backwards snapback and she held on to it as he slid himself underneath the car to locate the noise.

I was emptying a post box next to a woman with a striped tracksuit top and a bag-for-life who was discussing the price of travel with a large man in a mac, “It’s free to Haworth on the bus and I enjoy the journey; it’s £20 to Blackburn on the train!” I slammed the door of the box shut and a man in a white Transit van came around the corner and shouted at us all: “Get out my bloody way! Go on!” even though we weren’t in it.

I walked through two spider’s webs today.

The man in his sixties with the faded Just Beachin’ T-shirt...

The man in his sixties with the faded Just Beachin’ T-shirt that featured a picture of a kitten on a sun lounger was showing a neighbour, another man in his sixties—who has a half-sized resin statue of a horse ‘tethered’ to his house—around his new car. He pointed out something on the dashboard, “It’s guaranteed for life, that. Mind you, I’ve heard that before” he said, before pausing to greet the two men in green high-vis vests who were walking past. “Hiya lads”, he said with a small wave. “Ayup”, said the tallest of the hi-vis men, a pair of long ladders balanced on his shoulders. The other, slimmer and older with grey hair, just nodded and smiled; he was carrying a plate of cup-cakes decorated with blue butter icing and little silver balls.

Later, I was talking to a woman with very straight hair, glasses and a large canvas shopping bag about the problems she’s been having moderating her body temperature since the hospital put her on Warfarin. She was concerned her fleece jacket might make her too hot on her way to the bus stop, even though she’d taken out the lining. Quite a fat man passed us, he was walking a very small poodle while picking his nose and eating it.

Later again, the woman with the dyed black perm and the wind-cheater was talking to the woman in the large 1980s reactolites. She said  she was all fired up about her fish tank again. “It’s not been the same since my big shark died. I lost all my enthusiasm, but I’ve been busy with it again recently...” She broke off and grabbed the reactolite woman’s arm, “You’ll have to come over when the dark nights come back, it looks magical”.

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.

The UPVC door opened and a man wearing a blue fleece jacket and a large rucksack over a black pin-striped suit stepped out...

The UPVC door opened and a man wearing a blue fleece jacket and a large rucksack over a black pin-striped suit stepped out. He stood between the two lilies in plastic terracotta pots to lock up, then turned and walked towards me. “This weather looks a bit naughty!” he said as he passed, looking up at the sky “And they say it’s gonna get worse an’ all”.

Horny by Mousse T was playing over the P.A. in the toyshop. Down the road, the secretary at the recruitment agency said her signature made her look like “a right spaz” and Later, at the chemical plant, the security guard confiscated my lighter before he’d let me on site. He was chewing gum ferociously but his breath still smelt strongly of alcohol.

I followed a large hare for about fifty yards as it bounded along in the middle of the road. It darted off into the field where the magic mushrooms grow in the autumn.

I pulled up on the pavement next to the woman in the beige three-quarter length anorak with all the ties pulled as tight as possible; only her squashed face was visible under her shiny wet hood, giving her the look of a pantomime maggot. I commented on the miserable weather as I climbed out of my van and she agreed it was disappointing for the time of year. “I heard something funny the other day though. She said. “Oh, it did make me laugh!” She stifled a laugh at the very thought, and explained. “My friend’s son said that if the weather carries on like this, we’ll be sunbathing on Christmas day!” She threw her arms up in the air. “Oh, I did laugh!” She cackled.

I was walking past the newsagent’s shop when somebody threw a slimy mango stone...

I was walking past the newsagent’s shop when somebody threw a slimy mango stone out of a window on the first floor. It landed where I was just about to step. I adjusted my stride to the left to avoid it but the stone bounced and my foot came down right on top of it. I slid but managed to retain my balance. 

The driveway was lined with statues: a spaniel with big eyes holding a gas lamp in its mouth, an outsized squirrel with big eyes holding an acorn, a moonying gnome. Also, a folded-in-half wellington boot was pinned under the nearside front wheel of the TVR Chimaera.

The builder with the swagger and the four foot spirit level called me boss and told me his dog doesn’t like postmen. I approached the front door of the house he was working on and the dog started barking threateningly, its hair on end. The builder ignored the situation and climbed some scaffolding singing the Howard Jones song Like To Get To Know You Well. Eventually, the owner of the house had to come out and collected his mail from me.

An old man with no teeth was wheeling a broken swivel chair out to his bins. “Nothing lasts for ever!” he said.

At 6am, my neighbour slammed his front door and shouted “Bastard!”

At 6am, my neighbour slammed his front door and shouted “Bastard!” at the top of his voice.

At 6.30am In Northumberland Street, two young women were lying on their backs in the middle of the road, singing.

At 12.20pm in Church Street I saw a man in a heavy beige anorak – it was 23°C. He also wore two mansize tissues under the arms of his spectacles like large white blinkers.

At 2.30pm at the farm, the barbed wire fence was hung with clumps of snagged wool, the horse that was wearing the blanket kicked the one that wasn’t in the face and the two Border Terriers barked hysterically, almost throttling themselves on their chains. A swallow flew low over a dry stone wall, skilfully avoiding a collision with the giant fat ceramic blue tit which is fastened to the top of the gate post with a big blob of cement, while the farmer told me his neighbour is a lazy cunt.

At 3pm, while I was on my way home, I think the woman with the thick dark hair, glasses and the jumper round her waist heard me talking to myself in a Scouse accent.

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.

At the house with the sign on the gate that says ‘My Doberman lives here’

At the house with the sign on the gate that says ‘My Doberman lives here’ above a picture of a Doberman’s head and a human hand holding a torch, I stand on a snail as a helicopter flies overhead. On the window sill with the dead moths, there is a money tree plant, a single white sock, a dusty snooker trophy and a TDK D90 audio cassette still in its packaging. When I knock at the door, a man with tattoo sleeves answers, “It’s awkward when you can’t see your own writing”, he says as he fills in his signature.

I call at a house with a parcel but nobody is home. I notice people at the house next door so I go to ask whether they’ll take the parcel for their neighbour. A young man in a vest and jogging pants answers. He agrees to take the parcel and asks, “Are they trainers?” I say I don’t know. “I might try them on”, he says. He winks at me and then he puts his hand down the front of his trousers, adjusts his cock and shuts the door.

Two men are talking on the bus: “Have you ever murdered anyone, Carl?” “No, I haven’t, Jim.” “No, me neither.”

A snail crawls up my kitchen window on the morning of the diamond jubilee of HRH Queen Elizabeth ll.