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).

I followed a coach up Bradford Road. The livery on the back said "Stotts ...taking people to places"

I followed a coach up Bradford Road. The livery on the back read ‘Stotts ...taking people to places’.

At work, there has been a bag of Silver Spoon Granulated Sugar cable-tied to a ceiling joist for at least five years. No one remembers how it got there.

The Jehovah's Witnesses were talking in the street outside the house where I deliver the mail addressed to The Druid and the Witch of the End of Time. The one in the long taupe tasselled skirt and an anorak was saying "The most embarrassing thing is when you're in a public space and you can't stop laughing.”

On the radio Barbara Dickson was explaining that when she was young she decided she was "gonna show 'em" because she failed her 11+ exam. I changed to a channel where the presenter was introducing a quiz called Popmaster. The contestant was a stuntwoman who said she once gave up the job for a year but missed the adrenalin rush too much. The presenter said this was fascinating so I turned it over again. This time the presenter said "Now it's time for Rock, Shop and Recover on The Pulse of West Yorkshire: your chance to win tickets to see Kylie live in concert!” I switched it off.

At the sheet metal engineers, I handed a parcel to a large man with a greasy face and blue overalls. I asked him his name but didn't catch his reply.

“Sorry, what was that?” I said.

“Pardon”.

“What?” I said.

“Pardon. P.A.R.D.O.N” he said, “Mr Pardon”.

The weather brightened as I arrived at the Golf Club. The pheasants were making a lot of noise in the undergrowth and the greenkeeper had parked up his wheelbarrow and rake to scratch his back on a fence post. Outside the club house, a man in a suit strode across the car park carrying a large crystal chandelier and a grey haired man wearing and a v-neck sweater waved to me as he drove past in a cream and black Morgan.

A man falls asleep in the driver’s seat of a silver MG

A man falls asleep in the driver’s seat of a silver MG while reading a copy of the Daily Star: “PREGNANT POSH PRAYS FOR A PRINCESS”.

Yesterday, Steve had a large tear in the back of his trousers exposing a good six inches of his leg and his blue underpants. I pointed it out to him and he said he already knew but was far too busy to worry about it. He's wearing them again today.

“I don’t talk to him. Kick it down the street”, says the tall man in his fifties with grey hair and a paint-splattered sweatshirt when I ask him if he’ll take a parcel in for his neighbour.

A red Ford Ka drives past at high speed.

On Mr Haigh’s garden wall today: A Ewbank carpet sweeper with a broken handle, a handful of straw, a television set, a tin of dog food (half-empty and wrapped in polythene), two Jerry cans and a three-foot square wooden crate filled with cooking pots and utensils. Mr Haigh comes out to meet me and I mention the strong winds we’ve been having. “It’s always windy up here lad”, says Mr Haigh, “Up here’s the windiest place in the country. That’s how come they put all them turbines up. It’s the windiest in Britain and Britain’s the windiest in Europe so it must be the windiest place in Europe round here”.

I find a copy of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam in a puddle on Fitzwilliam Street.

I remember the woman at the house I visit for the first time in six years because of her distinctive way of applying make-up: thickly and sort of flumpy so that she looks a bit like she's made out of marshmallow. On my way out, I also remember that her garden gate opens inwards, even though it looks as though it should open outwards.

I see the red Ford Ka again, still speeding but going the other way.

A man in plastic-rimmed glasses, a hi-viz anorak and a flat cap that’s pulled down so hard it looks like a tweed beanie, asks me whether I know one of his friends. “What does he look like?” I ask “What DID he look like” the man corrects me, “he died eight years ago”.

I see the red Ford Ka again, abandoned, half on the pavement with its near-side front wing smashed into a wall.

On the way into work, I followed a tall thin man in a hooded top down John William Street, his hands deep in his pockets...

Sunday, 2 January 2011

5.30am: I followed a tall thin man in a hooded top down John William Street, his hands deep in his pockets. He was obviously very drunk and on several occasions staggered the full width of the generous pavements and tripped off the kerb into the road. His attempts to maintain a respectable swagger throughout were comical.

On the bus, the man with the tidy goatee said he’d had to go straight to bed after watching The Bourne Supremacy: “I was fucked! What a film! It was even better than James Bond”.

I asked Martin whether he'd had a good Christmas. He said it had been a quiet one up until one of his neighbours had been shot dead by the police after a noisy twenty-four hour siege.

Crosland Street was covered in dog shit.

At the house with the incomplete decking and a broken television in the garden there was a sticker on the letterbox that read “If it's too loud your too old”.

Other stickers I saw on doors today: "Hello, Welcome. Now piss off!" and "My Rottweiler kills chavs".

A grey Renault Clio passed me at high speed on the wrong side of the road. It was followed by five police cars. The old man whose mail I was delivering said "Bloody Hell, Look at that!" and the old lady over the street waved her fist in the air and shouted something incomprehensible.

At a firm of engineers I delivered the mail through the door marked "Security and Fitness Centre".

Mr Smith was clearing up the mess in his driveway from where "the bloody fox has got at us turkey carcass".

Around the perimeter of Mr Mahmood's otherwise completely barren concreted-over gardens are arranged twelve four-pint plastic milk containers. They are positioned equidistant from one another and are three-quarters filled with water.

I'm still having to step over last years dead Christmas tree...

I’m still having to step over last year’s dead Christmas tree to get to the letterbox at number 87.

A woman with tight jeans and a furry hat with ear flaps mistakes me for a colleague who recently featured in The Daily Examiner for doing the shopping for some of his elderly customers during the cold spell. She tells me how much old Mr Mallinson appreciated me getting his fags for him.

I hand over a parcel to a man with some keys on his belt. It’s obviously a Christmas present: “Bloody Hell! Someone’s got money to burn” he says. “I’m a miserable sod, aren’t I?” he adds before laughing and saying “Thank you, my man” three times in a West Midlands accent and then shutting the door.

Just past the interior designer’s house with the UPVC porch and the fake leaded lights in a stylised tulip pattern, about ten yards down from where he parks his white Astra with the body kit and the white circular cardboard air freshener which dangles from the rearview mirror and has the word ‘AIR’ cut out of it in Helvetica Bold, opposite the red-brick inter-war semi called ‘UP ’EM HALL’ with the three-wheeled motorcycle on the drive, half buried in the pile of mucky snow across from the house with the six-foot-high inflatable Homer Simpson wearing a Santa hat, I discover I can find eternal peace of mind from just £28.00 per annum (according to the promotional leaflet about insuring memorial stones and headstones I find there).

On my way into work at 5.30am a young woman in a frock coat...

5.30am: A young woman in a frock coat shouts to me from across the street, “Postman Pat! My daughter hates you!”

“It’s like a bottle for you isn’t it lad? Mind how you go.” says the old man in the cardigan and the scarf when I almost lose my footing on an icy pavement.

I see Rod Singleton in a bobble hat, chipping ice from his driveway with a spade. He says the weathermen are talking out of their fucking arses when they tell us it’s going to get warmer next week.

“Normally he cleans that path; he’s a taxi driver. It’s shocking is that for his wife”, says the man who looks a bit like he’s from the 1970s when I slip over on his neighbour’s path.

“I’ve lived here for forty year and I’ve never seen a single person come down here with a bit of salt. It’s disgusting!” says the elderly man with the combover and the zip-up rib-knit raglan cardigan with suede elbow patches.

A woman in a big black coat rounds the corner and crashes her buggy into my ankles. She doesn’t say anything or even look up, she just reverses a bit and goes around me.

A tall, slim woman in her mid-forties with a dyed black bob, knee-length boots, and skinny jeans walks up Moor End Road past a large snow sculpture of a cock and some balls. Arms outstretched, face raised up towards the sky and eyes shut tight, she sings along loudly to Lady Gaga on her mp3 player.

The man who shouts at the top of his voice at 05.30 in the morning...

The man who regularly shouts at the top of his voice from the flats at 5.30am was screaming instead this morning.

An unusual silver/grey fibreglass box has been left on Park Drive South. It’s about

a foot square and on the lid it says “This is it Martin” in black marker pen.

At the newsagent’s, a customer tells the Asian proprietress about some neighbours who’d made him a curry, “They had a two week holiday in Pakistan, or India, I can’t remember which, one or the other. Anyway, when they got back they invited me and the missus round for a curry and oh! It were bang-on! It really was superb!”

Outside, two school mums talk as they pick their way around the torn mattress, the divan bed base and the purple vest top in the icy puddle, “You’re walking like a mong” says one. “I know!” says the other “I need a wee desperately”.

A man with a leather jacket, blue tracksuit bottoms, black trainers, a bulbous nose, a grey moustache and a black baseball cap comes out of The Caledonian Café and belches loudly. The smell of liver and onions drifts along the bus queue.

A see a rat run across Heaton Road.

I saw my abusive neighbour again today, he was telling a learner driver to fuck off.

I need some waterproof socks.

A woman with unseasonably sheer tights was feeding pigeons

A woman with unseasonably sheer tights feeds pigeons from a Jack Fulton Frozen Value carrier bag at 6am.

The woman at the bus stop says it’s “niptorious” today.

The three young people in front of me in a heavy snow shower are in conversation: “She’s dead young. They’d better make sure she doesn’t get fucking pregnant” says the thin white girl with the scraped back ponytail and skinny jeans. “I know!” says the Asian boy with the saggy jeans and quilted jacket. “I need a fucking car!” says the thin white girl. “I can get you one for £135. It’s all right, it’s got a nice CD player or I can sort you out a USB if you want.” says the Asian boy. “I don’t care as long as it goes, I’ve got to be in fucking town for half-one.” “It should be £200 but I’ll sort it for you for £135 if you definitely want it. Do you definitely want it?” “Of course I fucking do! I’ve got to be in fucking town, haven’t I?” “Okay”, says the Asian boy, “I’ll bring it you round later”. The third member of the group, the thin black girl with the cerise pink dressing gown and the Ugg boots doesn’t say anything, she just walks alongside with her arms folded.

I suggest to a woman who is clearing her path in the blizzard that it must be a bit like painting the Forth bridge. She says she doesn’t know.

A skinny Irishman in his fifties with a roll-up, a greasy ducktail and a disobedient sheltie sings as he passes me, “Postman, postman don’t be slow, be like Elvis, go man go!” then he stops, turns around, and asks, “Did you like that?”

A young man in a hooded top and an Alfa Romeo 147 struggles to get traction in the snow. Fortunately, two more young men in hooded tops come running over, “We’ll give you a push, you cunt!” and they do, right to the top of the hill. Next, a middle-aged woman in a fleece jacket and a Lodge’s Pharmacy van with ‘Celebrity Slim Weight Loss Programme/Program’* written on it comes around the corner at the bottom and also struggles to get up the hill. This time the two young men in hooded tops shout to the thin white girl with the skinny jeans and the thin black girl with the cerise pink dressing gown who have appeared at the bottom of the street, “You two can push her!” and they walk away.

*Both spellings featured in the livery of the van

Someone has stolen the roof from Bradley Farm...

Someone has stolen the roof from Bradley Farm.

The sign above the door at MPC North Ltd says ‘mpc north: managing people’s choices’. The reception area is staffed by people in military fatigues with laptops on their knees.

At the park homes on the moor, a woman in an old fleece jacket with a picture of a wolf on it tells me I’m a good postman because she’s seen me pick up an elastic band I dropped. She tells me that my colleagues just leave them on her path. The wolf woman’s friend—salmon pink anorak, big set platinum hair and a plastic rain hood—says “Ignore her love, she’s like this,” and the wolf woman says, “No I’m not”.

At Mr Haigh’s, I have to step over a dead calf to get to his front door today.

An old Ford Ka pulls up next to me. In the front is a smartly dressed couple, he in a camel hair coat with suede collars and her with a tidy perm and a large beaded necklace. In the back is another man in a beige anorak. They are all in their seventies, maybe eighties. The driver winds down his window and shouts over in a southern accent, “It’s good to see a good healthy postman!” I kind of nod. The man goes on “I’ve got a man here...” He gestures over his shoulder at the man in the anorak. “... and I’m bringing him to see his childhood, er, all the good people!” I look at the anorak man in the back, he’s pulling faces at the driver like a petulant teenager and mock punching the back of his seat. “Bye bye!” says the driver, and he waves and drives away.

“A load of poofs live there”, the driver of the bin wagon says to me, pointing to number 20. All the bin men laugh and say “See you, mate” as they drive off.

The man in front of me with the shaved head, the tracksuit bottoms and the shiny blouson jacket...

The man walking in front of me with the shaved head, tracksuit pants and the shiny blouson jacket stops to pick up a packet of sodden cigarettes from the gutter. He opens it but he can’t get at the contents because they’re all stuck together. He tears at the packet, peels away a wet cigarette from the cluster, puts it in his mouth and makes repeated attempts to light it.

A man with a splint on his wrist, wearing glasses and smoking a pipe says “It’s a nice spot round here”. Just around the corner, I see a massive red toadstool and I run over a squirrel. Ten minutes later another man who is wearing glasses and smoking a pipe (but without a splint on his wrist) says “How do?” and asks me for directions to Bradley Farm. A bit later I trip over the wellington boot belonging to the man who is practising the drums with the window open and Mrs Sykes says she’s glad it’s a nice day and that junk mail is a bit of a pain but she supposes it keeps me in work.

I see my first domestic Christmas tree of the year. It has plain white lights.