The illuminated bollard in the middle of St James Road has been runover again

The illuminated bollard in the middle of Fitzwilliam Street has been run over again. And, at the junction by the gay bar, where the upside-down shopping trolley has been on the pavement all week, the traffic lights were stuck on red.

On the bus, I sat next to the old woman who was on her way to the cemetery. She was holding a single red rose. Behind us, a group school girls were discussing which they preferred, “Eating or drinking”. They unanimously agreed that drinking was definitely the best.

At the house that should be No.13 but is No.11a instead, the man with the big overcoat that restricts his movement was reversing his new car into a gate post. I judged he might not be in the mood to deal with my enquiry, so I pressed the doorbell and waited as it made a protracted series of notes of seemingly random tone, length and volume. Eventually a woman with a tea towel slung over her shoulder answered. She apologised, “Sorry about the bell, love. I washed it last night and it’s not been right since.”

Outside the Post Office, a man of about twenty, wearing a black-tracksuit-with-white-bits-on and a bum-fluff moustache...

Outside the Post Office, a man of about twenty, wearing a black tracksuit with white trim and a bum-fluff moustache, slammed the door of his new silver Mercedes and swaggered over with his hands in his pockets. Without averting his eyes from the pavement, he mumbled “Move your van, boss. There’s markings innit. D’ya get me?”

The man in the T-shirt, shorts and espadrilles signed for his parcel. He nodded at my hand held PDA, “Them’s weird these, aren’t they?” he said.

On the notice board at the new delicatessen, there are posters advertising classes for Zumba, Yoga for Pregnancy and a Craft Workshop. At the pub a few doors down the chalk board outside is advertising a Smokie tribute band.

I leant on a freshly painted door frame and got some Weathershield on my sleeve, “That’s all you need in’t it” said Mrs McHenry.

It was windy and the sky was littered with crows, swept up like a thousand bin bags.

It was windy and the sky was littered with crows, swept up like a thousand bin bags. Deep inside the bus shelter, a large woman wearing a done-up-to-the-top anorak pulled a cellophane wrapped greetings card from a large pretend-leather bag. Inspecting it, she smoothed the corner between her finger and thumb; “Is that bent, or is it me?” she asked. 

Also waiting for the bus was a very large man in a black tracksuit top with white trim. He was standing outside the shelter, in the middle of the pavement, feet a metre apart, squared-up against the gale. He wore his hood up, a scarf across the bottom half of his face, his hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders back; rock solid in the teeth of the squall that blew his enormous grey marl sweat pants tight around him, clearly outlining his quite small cock and balls.

“Don’t worry, they’re worse than they seem”, the woman reassured me as she restrained her snarling dogs. 

At the house with the statuette of a meerkat holding a sign that says “Welcomes” on it, the old woman behind the glass front door got up and walked away when I rang the bell. Her neighbour, a man who was chewing gum and wearing protective goggles came out and told me he thought it was a crap day but that technology is brilliant.

The woman who feeds the pigeons by the open market is loaded up with three Jack Fulton bags of birdseed.

6.30am: The woman who feeds the pigeons by the open market is loaded up with three Jack Fulton bags of birdseed. She hides in the shadow of the architrave of the lap dancing club until the man on the ride-on street sweeping machine has disappeared behind the Christian fellowship building.

9am: In the big new houses, a drunk woman sings a repertoire of contemporary pop songs at high volume from an open first floor window.

10.30am: A wasp stings the back of my neck on the driveway at Shangri-La

11.30am: "Lovely morning!" the window cleaner shouts down from his ladders, “What time do you finish?”

“Twenty past one officially, half two in reality” I say.

“Aye, them at t’bottom do more and more so’s them at t’top can do less and less. It’s always been the way, lad. Lovely morning though. Keep smiling!”

11.45am: I spend five minutes searching for my van keys before I realise they're in my hand.

On the estate where pretend owls outnumber the human population by two to one...

On the estate where pretend owls outnumber the human population by two to one, a woman tends her plastic window boxes. She wears gold-rimmed Reactolites, pink marigold gloves, flip-flops and a grey fleece jacket and trouser combination. Her patio of pink stone flags with electric cabling running through the joints, is decorated with an assortment of garden ornamentation: a gnome riding on a snail’s shell, a pair of disembodied hands holding a small bird with a solar panel in its back and a lamp in its chest, a hedgehog riding a tractor. A poodle startles the sparrows from the beech hedge. it makes me jump and I nearly trip over the statue of the top half of a woman with no arms.

11.45am: A man with mashed potato and lamb mince down the front of his shirt opens his window to offer me directions but I’m not lost. Next door, a woman with a Summer Wine perm and a grey cardigan answers her door. Her mouth is full and there’s quite a large piece of flaky pastry stuck to her cheek, “Hankfs Flhuff”, she says, as I hand her her parcel.

At the house that always smells of dog piss and stale cigarettes, an old man opens the window to take his mail. “You’re looking very smart in your uniform today, sir”, he says, “Good for you, sir. Good for you.”

I cross the rec’, adding another trail of footprints in the dew. A woman in a pink fleece jacket throws a blue ball with an orange launcher for her Jack Russell terrier, Muff, to fetch.

“More rubbish!” says the man at number 14 when he sees me coming, “I’m gonna put a letterbox on my dustbin so you can post it straight in”. “Oh, leave him alone, he gets paid for that”, says his wife from her plastic patio chair. She’s thumbing through a magazine and smoking a cigarette. “Aye”, says the man, “and the bin men get paid to take it away; the postman giveth and the bin man taketh away”. “Aye, it keeps the world going round though dun’t it, love”, says the woman, winking at me.

The weather turns and the short, rotund woman with the russet dyed almost grown out perm, grey roots and purple anorak is sheltering under her blown inside-out umbrella at the bus-stop. “In’t it awful weather!” she shouts across the road. I agree.

On the post box outside the pub where Eeezi Goin’ are playing on Thursday night...

On the post box outside the pub where Eeezi Goin’ are playing on Thursday night, somebody has written ‘HYC’ in marker pen. I didn’t know the HYC were still around; they once gave me a beating in the toilets of the Most Luxurious Club In The North. I came out with two black eyes and a bust lip. It was 1988.

The proprietress of the shop was shouting into the phone in Urdu at the top of her voice when I dropped off the bags. Outside, a dope smoking, shaven headed man was showing off his new baby to his dope smoking, shaven headed friends. They were in broad agreement that she was a cutie.

Out in the sticks, where shreds of polythene stream like bunting from barbed wire along the fireweed verges, you can see around corners in the cracked convex mirrors. It’s all lavender and hydrangea, gravel paths and improvised containers, wellington boots, wooden windows, cabling suspended via a tree to a shed whose door is propped open with a lump of cement the shape of a bag of cement. The sign says “Caution, Free Range Children” and the black Lab’ is “deaf as a post”. An old man says “Thanks, Pat”, and gives me the thumbs up. I kick the ball for his dog. The first frost of the year has severed the head of the stone tortoise that stands by his door.

Two black labradors bark at each other from opposite sides of the street

Two black Labradors bark at each other from opposite sides of the street while their owners conduct a loud conversation about black Labradors above the noise.

On the way up to the manor house, I disturbed a heron. I'd thought it was one of those plastic ones until it flapped around in a panic and took off. As I walked back down the drive, I heard a rustling noise in the trees above me. I looked up in time to avoid a squirrel as it lost its grip and fell, landing with a surprisingly load slap on the tarmac. It looked at me, startled, and set off across the lawn.

At the lodge, the dog has shat in its food bowl.

A man in a white transit van with a sheep’s skull fastened to its radiator and a crude depiction of an ejaculating penis in the dirt across its back doors stops to ask me for directions to the farm. I tell him to turn right just after Redgates, “You can’t miss it”, I say, “it’s got massive green gates”. When I arrive at Redgates myself, a half hour or so later, the distinctive gates have gone, replaced by some temporary safety barriers. I ask the owner what has happened. “They’re in the garage”, he says, “It’s been so wet recently, I took them off for re-painting to give the gardeners something to do. Otherwise, they’ll sit around drinking fucking tea all day”.

On my way home, I called in at the shop. Two young women came in after me, followed by a short man in a shiny old bomber jacket. I took my things to the man at the till—the Asian one with the greying bob and pencil moustache—and, as he checked out my stuff, the bomber jacket man walked behind me and out of the shop without buying anything. The till man glanced up and watched him out of the door, “There’s some odd characters around” he said. “Did he just walk out without paying?” I asked. “No”, said the till man, “I think he just saw those girls and followed them in for a closer look”. “No way!” I said, incredulously. The till man laughed and said, a bit louder than he’d intended, “I know! There’s some fucking sad bastards around here in’t there!” and he slapped his palm across his mouth, looking sideways to check there were no other customers within earshot.

Things people said by way of a greeting today:

A woman in the middle of washing her hair: “Oh dear.”

A man wearing ear defenders and three days of stubble: “Alright?”

A man wearing a football kit to lay a patio: “Hello.”

A thin man with unruly grey hair, an unkempt full beard and very clean new trainers: “Ayups!”

A man in a North Face fleece: “Oh, hiya there!”

A man wearing yellow gloves to push a wheelbarrow: “Morning!”

A slim, grey haired woman restraining a black labrador: “Hellooo! He’s a big softy.”

A man of a similar age to me wearing a hooded top and tartan shorts: “Hi lad.”

A very pale old man in a grey sweatshirt: “I have a lot of things wrong with me, but I’m not deaf.” (After I’d knocked loudly at his door).

A man in a ski jacket and hat said nothing but raised his eyebrows and smiled.

The bald man in the Fair Isle sweater said nothing and made no discernible acknowledgement of my presence, even when I said hello to him and handed him his mail. 
In the road outside his house there was a dead sparrow, only about ten yards from where I saw the dead fox in March.

Shortlisted for the Blog North Awards

This blog has been shortlisted for the Blog North Awards for Best Writing. This is a good thing, I think. Public voting will be tallied with the choices of the judging panel so, if you have a minute and the inclination to vote and/or spread the word I'd appreciate it. Here's a direct link to the voting page. I'm also reading at the... um... ceremony (Oct 17th at the Deaf Institute in Manchester) so, should anybody want to come and watch me mumble and look awkward in public you can for just £6! (further details at blognorthawards.com)

Also, while I'm here, There is a facebook page for The Most Difficult Thing Ever at http://goo.gl/aLXkH

Thanks. 

PS. New post soon – will probably feature an incident today during which I escaped injury when a squirrel fell out of a tree and probably something about a Ford Transit.

PPS. Here's the link – nearly forgot:
http://www.blognorthawards.com/vote

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.