Mrs Hussain was in her front room on a treadmill watching telly again

Mrs Hussain is in her front room on a treadmill watching tele' again. She answers the door with a water bottle in her hand.

An old man shouts me from the first floor of the flats. He asks how long it will be before he gets his post. "About half an hour" I say. "Hurry up lad, I need to go out! I'm already late, I've been waiting for you!" He is dressed in pyjamas.

A man in his 60s wearing, jeans, slippers, a faded purple jersey vest and an impressive tan says "Hello buddy" as he cuts his finger nails in the street. "She sends us outside to clip these", he explains.

An elderly white man with no teeth and elbow patches on his cardigan shouts me from the house across the street. I cross over to him and he hands me some mail saying "it's my address right enough but there's never been anyone of that name living here. I've lived here since this wa' built". I look at the top envelope. He's underlined the Asian name on it in green ink. "Go see him eight doors down with the BMW and the Juliet window, he's a foreigner, he might know". I take the mail and apologise for the misdelivery but point out that I am obliged to deliver the mail as addressed, "For all I know, someone else could have moved in…” I explain. The old man cuts me off, rolls his eyes and says "You might think I'm a bit simple but if something says I.C.I on it, you don't deliver it to David Brown's do you?" He mimes studying an address. Looking down at the imaginary letter in one hand, he strokes his chin with the other, a cartoon wide-eyed simpleton look on his face. "I would if it was addressed to I.C.I at David Brown’s address, yes” I say. "Well," says the man irritably "All you need to know is that while this sign is on this door it's me who lives here and no-one else!" and he stabs his finger at the engraved brass plaque screwed to the door frame that reads "IF YOU'VE NOT BEEN INVITED, YOU'D BETTER HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR KNOCKING AT THIS DOOR."

I was waiting to cross the road. The man who wears black polo-neck jumpers and never opens his curtains was also waiting to cross on the other side. Another man whose name is Johno (according to the sign in the windscreen of his wagon) stopped and waved us both across. As we passed one another, the polo-necked man looked up at me and said "Hello, my friend".

AT THE BUS STOP.

At the bus stop:

WOMAN IN HER FORTIES: I’m not gonna be in tomorrow, I’m going to a concert.

MAN IN HIS FIFTIES: What concert are you going to?

WOMAN: Shaky

MAN: Shaky? What’s Shaky?

WOMAN: (exasperated) Shakin’ Stevens! I was that exhausted after Bad Manners I booked the day off this time.

MAN: Shakin' Stevens? I had one of his LPs I think. I think it wa' rubbish. Did he sing Green Door?

WOMAN: Yes.

MAN: It wa' rubbish that.

WOMAN: Well I won’t be in anyway.

Mr Haigh has stuck some large COME ON ENGLAND stickers on his wheelie bins (his normal one and his recycling one).

The builder working on a new porch is singing the Simply Red song, For Your Babies very loudly. He breaks off briefly to say “Alright, pal” without looking up as I walked down the garden path.

A woman stops me in the street to tell me she can smell toast.

I get stuck in the lift at the flats for half an hour until the engineers came to open the door.

There’s been a tangerine in the gutter on Bradford Road all week and yesterday I saw two bananas, one in Cote Lane and one in New Hey Road near the roundabout at Mount. This morning I saw a full bunch of bananas in Cote Lane and twenty or so eggs smashed in the gutter of Heaton Road.

The man who sleeps in his car on Mucky Lane has got a new one, a silver Rover 75.

I gave a colleague a lift home...

I gave a colleague a lift home. He told me his brother, who is a shopfitter and flies model aircraft in his spare time, had been picked up by the police whilst waiting for a bus in the early hours and had had no idea why. After four hours in a cell he’d overheard the duty sergeant telling the arresting officers they’d never make a case for loitering at a bus stop and they let him go.

Two children were talking on their way to the primary school. The chubby girl with long blond hair and the elasticated waistband was showing a friend her new glasses:

"Yes, we found the best opticians" she said.

"Which one?" her friend asked.

“Erm, I, I can't remember what it's called. It had a grey sign".

"Specsavers?"

"No, they've got a green sign. I can't remember. Anyway, I'm saying they were good but I'm still waiting for my Playboy case, aren't I?”

A couple were having sex in the back of a plumber's van by the park.

At one of the big houses by the golf course the man who answered the door smelt of Brasso.

I saw a woodpecker trying to make a hole in a telegraph pole on Lea Lane.

Mr Whitwam had cordoned off the driveway of his static caravan with a length of white plastic chain stretched between two traffic cones that had been sprayed silver. He was kneeling on a large foam cushion insert from an old settee while he scraped moss from between his pink herringbone setts. His Jaguar was parked in the road.

Mr Briggs intercepted me for his mail outside the old hall in Stile village...

Mr Briggs intercepted me for his mail outside the old vicarage. He asked me where the regular postman was and I said he was off work with an upset stomach. "One of our lads had the shits last week" said Mr Briggs. And without pausing for a response he said "Right, I'm going”, and he sped off, spinning the wheels of his Bedford Rascal on the greasy old millstone setts.

I drove down the narrow track to Springwood End sending dog walkers scurrying to gather up their pets. The man with the Grayson Perry hairdo and the double-denim efficiently wrangled his King Charles but struggled for a while with his long-haired dachshund. The two men in hunters caps, puffa jackets and green wellies had no problem with their brown labrador but the man with the gilet, the Dalmation and the iPod couldn’t hear me, so I had to drive most of the way at walking pace.

On the way back up, another man with a brown labrador flagged me down to ask whether I could spare any elastic bands.

My first (and only) sighting of a person under the age of retirement today was the builder who is converting the barn on the edge of the moor. His yellow and black heavy-duty site radio was playing Baggy Trousers by Madness while he stood with his hand down the front of his trousers talking to the woman with the brown labrador, the NY ski hat and the cerise pink walking socks. He was telling her how much he enjoyed reading books about the 2nd world war: “It could be anything from somebody's memoirs to an account of a battle. As long as it's not fiction, I'm not arsed about that" he explained.

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.