The Lonely Pig on the Moor

Every day this week, I’ve seen the lonely pig on the moor. It runs to the perimeter of its pen and stares at me as I walk past. Yesterday morning, when it came to meet me, I made two pig-like grunts (I don’t know why, I wasn’t really thinking about it) and it responded in the same manner.

Further up the moor, Mr Briggs pulls up. He winds down the window of his Suzuki Carry and tells me that he and his missus have been by coach to Eastbourne for a ‘Turkey and Tinsel Weekender’. “Aye,” he explains, “Tuesday was Christmas Eve, Wednesday was Christmas Day, and Thursday was New Year’s Day. £125-a-head all-in, including four drinks, which is enough. We had a real time!” Mr Briggs goes on to tell me that by the Thursday (New Year’s Day) he’d found he fancied a fish. He says he travelled to a chip shop in Brighton only to find that they cost £10.50 so he hadn’t bothered in the end.

Back in town, the gas board are digging up the roads. The woman in the pink onesie who is sitting on her front step surrounded by small statues of Yorkshire terriers while she smokes a cigarette, tells me, “It’s a right pain, there’s nowhere to bloody park.”

A gold Kia Picanto screeches to a halt outside the church and a man in his seventies with a beard and glasses gets out brandishing a small hand plane. He slams shut the car door, shoulders open the gate of the churchyard and sprints down the path and through the open doors. Within seconds I can hear the sound of wood being energetically smoothed echoing out from the church interior.

At 2.30pm, at the top of the hill, I encounter two large women in their seventies. They are dressed in identical spotted Dalmatian onesies and appear to be very drunk. They cling to one another as they zig-zag across the middle of the road whilst inexplicably making load “miaow” noises like enormous bipedal dog-cats. In the supermarket, the woman with the sensible shoes and bag-for-life is telling her husband about her dislike of Milk Tray chocolates. “Don’t ever buy me Milk Tray again! I hate them! Joan bought me some last year and I’ve still got them. Yuk!”

PS: The film at the head of this post was shot from approximately the same place that Edwardian filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon made their short film in Huddersfield 114 years ago. Link to BFI Player here: http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-employees-of-messrs-lumb-and-co-leaving-the-works-huddersfield-1900-1900/

6.15am: Dancers and Bouncers were Sharing Jokes and Cigarettes outside the Strip Club

6.15am: Dancers and bouncers share jokes and cigarettes outside the strip club. The dancers are wearing their ‘standing outside’ uniform: white faux-mink coats, suspenders and heels. The bouncers wear black suits and patent shoes.

The man behind me on the bus to the hospital has a loud hacking cough. I get off where a group of builders with hard hats over their hoods are smoking in a huddle outside the house with the empty Cheese Curls packet and pile of dog shit underneath the trampoline in the yard.

There’s a lot of rotten pre-recession Ground Force decking around here and it’s slippery and treacherous at this time of year; the old man with butter on his nose advised me to watch myself after I slipped on his.

In the street, a young man with a shaved head and tracksuit is vacuuming his brand new Vauxhall Corsa while he listens to Robbie Williams quite loudly.

Out in the sticks, beyond where the remains of the smashed up traffic cone have been strewn across the road for weeks. Beyond even where the empty breakfast bowl and spoon have been left on top of the dry-stone wall a half mile from the nearest house (It’s been there for several days and there’s an inch-and-a-half of rainwater in the bowl now), a low mist is sitting in the valley bottom. The grey road is accented with orange cherry leaves and a large flock of fieldfares is messily stripping out all the berries from a big rowan tree.

On the driveway at Oakwood, a man of about thirty-five, with a beard and donkey jacket, has his head under the bonnet of his thirty-year-old Saab 900 while he listens to Talking Heads quite loudly.

The camp teenage boy is talking to his companion on the bus

The camp teenage boy is talking to his companion on the bus: “I can tell he’s got a crush on me but if I say owt I know he’s just gonna say ‘I’m not gay!’ in that stupid indignant voice”.

Behind me, the grey-haired hi-vis man has been to the new restaurant that apparently everybody is talking about: “I ordered the lamb but when it came it was all fat. I got one tiny thin slice of meat off the whole piece! I sent it back. I can’t eat that I said, it’s all fat. The woman asked me ‘Do you want to order something else?’ I said, ‘No love, you’ve put me right off my tea now, I’m going home to make myself some beans on toast.’ The chef chased me out into the car park and told me he was going to have word with the butcher but I’ll not be going back”.

I walk down Leeds Road behind a girl in skinny jeans and a black puffer jacket. She’s talking loudly on her phone in Polish, emphasising key points with wild, histrionic hand gestures.

There’s a woman in the Costcutter with ‘Nobody’s Cow’ appliquéd onto her onesie above her breasts. Outside, the man with the piercings is polishing the alloys of his Ford Fiesta with one hand while he smokes some strong weed with the other. He smiles and waves.

Out in the sticks, it’s all long shadows, wood smoke and lavender, starlings on wires, church bells, dried hydrangeas, Kate Bush songs from the open windows of ex farm buildings, wicker-baskets, wellington boots, a possible sighting of a small flock of waxwings and a definite sighting of a huge flock of lapwings.

There are plastic bags in the trees.

I was nearly hit twice by flying objects today: I had to swerve to avoid the soiled nappy that somebody threw from their front door towards the bins without looking*, then at the farm I had to duck under the flight path of an enraged goose. It hissed and honked and flew over the five bar gate at me in a rage. The old farmer ran out and got himself between the goose and me, flapping his arms at it. “It’s a right little bastard this ‘en!” he explained, as he tried to shepherd it back into the yard, “It dun’t like me either, keeps biting me. It’s never flown ovva t’gate before though!”

*This has happened before: http://goo.gl/edTd1A

It had been a windy night; beech nuts were popping under my feet

It’s been a windy night and the beech nuts are popping under my feet. The street lights are out again and it would be pitch black were it not been for the faint glow of the light that illuminates the green lichen triangle on a pole that used to be a street sign.

Lunchtime: still only half light. And cold. Paths are lined with thick puddles of leaves, black arthritic nettles, and frantically suckering brambles. The wind hisses through yellow horse chestnut, and telegraph wires strain at their poles. Brown fields are dotted white with gulls and the farm cat swallows a mouse whole in just three gulps.

At the pub in the village where ‘2 Dine for £12.99 on selected main courses and afternoon tea’, the landlord is being important enough in Fair Isle and corduroy. “Hello there!” he enthuses to customers disgorged crease free from mainly Range Rovers.

I watch some squabbling jackdaws while I piss against a tree. Half a dozen of them are fighting over the topmost perch of the church steeple. They circle scrappily for a while until one suddenly tips its wing and attempts a landing. Usually, its move is pre-empted by

the others and the breakaway bird is knocked off course and forced to abort. Occasionally, one succeeds in making the perch only for the rest to rush it en masse and dislodge it after only a few seconds.

Research into outdoor chores carried out in the last week of September:

Research into outdoor chores carried out in the last week of September: 

Gender / Approx’ age / Attire. 

16°C - 20°C (mild weather for the time of year)

Sunny with very occasional light drizzle.

1. Male, 40s. Watering potted annuals. T-shirt, jeans, sandals.

2. Male, 70s. Scrubbing hose reel with stiff brush. T-shirt, trousers, sandals.

3. Male, 60s. Clipping fingernails. T-shirt, jeans, sandals.

4. Female, 60s. Digging out couch grass. Fleece jacket, jogging pants, walking boots.

5. Female, 70s. Taking seedlings round to a neighbour. Blouse, trousers, sandals.

6. Female, 40s. Walking Labrador. T-shirt, jeans, trainers.

7. Female, 70s. Weeding between driveway setts with special long-handled tool. Fleece jacket, trousers, sandals.

8. Male, 60s. Loading garden cuttings into Fiat Punto. Fleece jacket, jeans, black shoes.

9. Female, 40s. Re-pointing garage wall. Fleece jacket, tracksuit pants, slippers.

10. Female, 70s. Walking Highland terrier. Fleece jacket, knee-length plaid pleated skirt, flat black shoes.

11. Male, 60s. Re-pointing wall. Polo-shirt, jeans, black shirt.

12. Female, 30s. Putting out bins. large knitted striped jumper, jogging pants, one slipper, one bare foot.

13. Female, 70s. 'Popping to the shop to get some bits'. knee-length skirt, knitted cardigan, flat black shoes.

14. Male, 60s. Sweeping yard. Fleece jacket, trousers, welly shoes.

15. Male, 60s. Washing Fiat Punto. Navy-blue overalls, black shoes.

16. Male, 60s. Clearing guttering. Shirt with collar, V-neck sweater, suit trousers, slippers.

17. Female, 60s. Sweeping pavement outside house. Cardigan, trousers, slippers.

18. Male, 80s. Polishing KIA Picanto. Shirt with collar, V-neck sweater, suit trousers, black shoes.

19. Female, 70s. Sweeping driveway with brand new yard brush. Sweatshirt embroidered with floral display, trousers, welly shoes.

20. Male, 70s. Re-applying window putty. Knitted cardigan, jeans, slippers.

21. Male, 50s. Shouting abuse at a neighbour in the street, “Don’t fuck with me!” T-shirt, jeans, socks.

22. Male, 70s. Telling the postman that a neighbour has died, “Yep, they’ve buried her and everything”. Baseball cap, cardigan, jogging pants, trainers.

23. Male, 20s. Hiding door key under mat, “You never saw that, did you? There’s nowt worth nicking anyway, it’s a right shit-hole”. Motorcycle helmet, tracksuit, trainers.        

I walked a long way today, through eight spiders’ webs

I’ve walked a long way today; through eight spiders’ webs. I’ve got dead flies webbed to my shirt and face.

There’s tree litter, there are bagged nappies and there are BMWs on the slippery Driveways of Distinction.

On the main road, a builder is loading a heavy-duty site radio back into his van. He slams the doors shut as I stride across his freshly laid concrete path leaving three deep footprints. I apologise and made a weak joke about the current vogue for pattern imprinted concrete. The builder says nothing, just turns around, opened the van doors, and unloads his radio and tools again. I disappear around a corner and wash my shoes in a puddle.

A small boy of about four or five years old runs out into the road. His dad comes after him, picks him up and drags him back to the pavement. “I’ve told you not to do that, It’s dangerous!” He yells. “I know,” says the boy. “So why did you do it then?” “Because it was a secret ninja job.”

Out in the sticks where 50% of women are inside Range Rovers.

Out in the sticks where fifty percent of women are inside a Range Rover, I follow the deer down the gravel driveway to the barn conversion where the new faux-modernist chrome-plated garden sculpture is something a bit different and absolutely beautiful to look at according to the woman with the glass of something lovely in her hand. I lost a fiver around here yesterday, I retrace my steps for about ten minutes but there’s no sign of it.

In the village, the grown-up paper-girl in distressed denim passes me in the street. She tucks her phone under her chin and folds a copy of The Sun for her next drop without pausing her conversation. “They're having another baby. Royal twats!” she says as she pushes open the gate with her hip, “...Yes, well, if I had a decent job I wouldn’t be doing a paper round, would I?”

I park my van at the end of another long driveway, in the same place I have every day this week. I open the door and there, screwed up on the pavement, is my fiver.

Kyle’s Always Grabbing My Tits.

“Kyle’s always grabbing my tits” says the young woman in the tight fitting playsuit whose toddler son has just grabbed her tits. “I know! Mine too, it really hurts” says the older woman in the noteworthy trainers as she gathers her low-maintenance hair into a scrunchie. “And it’s embarrassing” adds the younger one, as she pushes her unfashionable specs up the bridge of her nose.

The butcher is recommending a cut of pork loin to the thin-lipped elderly woman with the big black canvas shopping bag and frown. He waves a large knife over it in the display counter, “That’ll be lovely, tender as a woman’s heart!” he says. “I’ll have the sausages” says the woman.

A boy of about six or seven years old stops me in the street. “Do you want to buy this for a pound?” he says, opening his palm to reveal the pebble I’ve just seen him pick up from Mr Beever’s driveway. “What is it?” I ask. “A pebble” says the boy, rubbing it on his sleeve, “It’s shiny”. “A pound for a pebble?” I say. “It’s magic”, says the boy.

I was watching a nuthatch in Hangingstone Road when a thin man in washed-out black passed at dangerously high speed. He was riding a pushbike and trailer with GAY written across the back of it in large plastic letters. He looked up at me as he shot through the narrow gap between the double parked cars. “Hiya!” he yelled at the top of his voice. The nuthatch flew away.

I Chase Cloud Shadows Up Over the Moor...

I chase the cloud shadows up over the moor and onto the estate where the men still drive Rovers and wear their hair in elaborate combovers that flip up in the wind like busy, beige peddle-bin lids. Wind-assisted lapwings flock in the field behind the abandoned Renault camper, the pretend duck by the bin store ‘quacks’ as I pass, and a replica of a basset hound peers out from the large stone handbag in Mrs Hinchliffe’s Alpine rockery, its head bobbing on a spring. People in comfy shoes restrain small terriers, fry liver and onions, smoke cigarettes, and scrape fluvial sediment from a storm drain with a butter knife. A man with a bit of dinner on his face sits on a collapsible chair outside his conservatory door. He is surrounded by marigolds, begonias, gladioli, Sport For All stickers, a faded Basil Ede print of some ducks, a pile of VHS video cassettes, a dozen or so pretend meerkats, and a miniature wooden wheelbarrow stuffed with pansies and snapdragons. Next door, a ten-year-old dusty-pink Kia Picanto pulls up and a grey-haired man with thick, plastic-rimmed Reactolite glasses and a three-quarter length beige anorak climbs out. He slams the door, opens the boot, and unloads three heavy looking Lidl bags-for-life. He pulls out a small packet of dog biscuits and holds it up high to show the man with the dinner on his face who shouts, “Thanks, Derek!” and points towards the open door of his green plastic shed, “Wob us it in there, can you?”

The Most Difficult Thing Ever (Book/CD)