Wall

A news report on the radio told of a wall that had collapsed in Scotland today, killing two men, and injuring another two. And that was it. It was more specific about where in Scotland the wall collapsed but nothing else.

Bins

As I tried the door of the fenced-off area to the bins I heard someone pipe up, "Hold on a minute." I pushed the door open with a little force to find one man getting up off the floor, awkwardly, in a cramped space by his rucksack, as he said, "Come on, we've got to go," to another man next to him. The man next to him was squatted over a flattened out empty crisp packet on the ground, hands steady with his mobile phone. He said, "I've got to take a photo of this crisp packet. I'm a student."

I slung my bag of rubbish into one of the big bins and closed the door behind them.

Bum

Whose a lovely girl?
Whose a lovely girl?

Whose a lovely girl?

A woman repeated each line as if saying it for the first time as she took a selfie in the park with her dog, Cindy. Only a few minutes earlier, Cindy had sniffed another dog's bum. The dog with the bum then went on to cock one of its back legs up to have a wee against the short stump of a tree trunk.

Dynamic

In a side street that leads to one of the gates of the local park, a woman spruced up the bold lettering of a ghostly 24 HOUR ACCESS sign with another round of white paint. Around the corner was a blue van scrawled in generic graffiti with the shutter half way up, revealing tightly packed big blue plastic barrels. I usually see this van parked in the side street at the end of the day, the barrels on their sides and being rolled about as they take turn to be hosed down on the inside by the driver. Today I saw their incongruous green plastic screw-top lids for the first time. I've no idea if they were screwed on, but they looked like they were. The van was parked in front of a retired ambulance, it's side door open, as the driver busied himself on the pavement.

A man dressed like an old-fashioned undertaker, but without the tall black hat, had just finished sliding a dry dog poo off the end of his grey shovel into the drain by the kerbside. I don't think he'd seen me until then, and carried on standing in the same position with the shovel hovering over the drain until I walked passed. Only seconds later on the other side of the road, another man was walking away from his car and just as it beeped and the indicator lights flashed once to signal it was locked, he turned back in a quick flash like a pantomime villain, as if trying to catch the car out in the act.

I could have sworn on first glance the sign outside of a charity shop with the picture of a woman posing in a short sparkly black dress said 'Shit this season' when in fact it said 'Shine this season'. I think I'd been affected more by witnessing the dog poo incident than I'd like to credit.

At the supermarket checkout, a family made up of girlfriend, boyfriend, and mam and dad, were behind me in the queue putting their shopping on the conveyor belt. I guessed the mam and dad were staying with them to see in the New Year. The colour co-ordination of the shopping resembled their clothes. It was quite disturbing. There's was just something clearly wrong here, then I thought the display of shopping said more about the family dynamic, a charge led by two tins of tomato soup and a pale looking sweet and crunchy salad, its contents suffocated in the air tight plastic bag. The girlfriend proceeded to move a bottle of prosecco to the front of their shopping and in line with the two tins of tomato soup. The boyfriend cautiously moved in the same direction, on the periphery, as he was blocked by mam and dad who stood looming over the shopping which was all now on the conveyor belt. He suggested they buy another bottle to which she replied, 'To go with this one?' I thought it was a funny thing to say. 'Of course to go with that one,' I said, in my head. It felt like she'd closed down that line of enquiry down quite quickly with her own question as he was quite keen to buy another bottle. It was for seven people after all. I wondered if they should have bought another tin of soup.

That's electric

May I have a large doner kebab and some chips?

Each word was pronounced as roundly and measured as he was, as he faced the men behind the counter in their trade mark blue aprons. There was a collection box by the till made out of a roughly modified cardboard box badly wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. On the stuck on notice was a drawing of a Christmas tree in permanent marker, which looked more like an electric pylon.

Leaving the house earlier I'd seen the ginger cat that lives at the end of my street. It was in its regular place, just outside its front door, tonight licking one of its legs. But just as I approached the cat and before I had a chance to say hello, it began to walk on, flattened into a dull silhouette by the headlights of a car which had just turned into the street. It looked like it'd received an electric shock, its soft furry outline now barbed and a bright neon white. I said hello.

Spin

The TV in the work canteen this morning was showing a fly-on-the wall documentary about a hospital. A man was having a mole looked at. Two minutes later and he's being operated on while fully conscious, flat on his back and startled eyes wide open looking directly up at the ceiling, most of his torso covered in a racing green coloured sheet, while flanked either side by two professionals under a bright white light. I suspected they were working away on his mole. I thought there was a lot of blood and the big incision unnecessary for a simple mole removal but there you go, I'm sure they knew what they were doing. By the time I got up to leave there was another man standing about, who looked quite jovial and I could sense the white flesh of a bulging belly under his old grey t-shirt and I thought, 'ey up, he's next.

This the third week on the spin. How much tax money you pocketing?

There are three destinations I hear announced when waiting for my train home and every single time I mishear Up Early, Migraine and Poorly.

A couple of nights ago I had a late bath. I shouldn't have really as my cold-state had left me feeling a bit woozy, but still I took the plunge in the hot soapy water and submerged myself up to my neck, and the tiled wall swayed from left to right a little, the grid of the white grout leaving a burning white impression when I closed my eyes. And still it rocked, more heavily to the right with each tilt as if it was slowly building momentum in that direction to set the room spinning like a Wall of Death, a tiled one, without a motorcyclist, but a man in a bath.

Vinegar

In the hardware store a man came up to me and asked if I knew where the lining paper was while consulting the face of his mobile phone. I was looking for the PVA. After a bit of a think I pointed him in the direction of where I thought the lining paper would be and said, "Whatever I'm looking for is never where I expect it to be in here." Then low and behold just as I raised my pointy finger and uttered those words a big suspended LINING PAPER sign appeared. Well, that is not actually true but I like to think that's what it said. I think it was more like WALLPAPER AND PASTE. I had to ask someone where the PVA was. On my to the PVA I saw the lining paper man as he left the aisle I sent him to. He was now speaking into his mobile phone and hastily told me they didn't have the grade he needed.

In the car park, a family had been getting into their car. The mam was bundling the daughter into the back seat and before the dad with a trolley full of tiles could get anywhere near opening the boot, he was approached by two men canvassing for work. They looked a bit pushy, in fairly casual get-up. Within seconds of a wary sideways glance from the dad, one of them was showing the dad something on his mobile phone, I suspect photographic evidence of his handiwork. By the time I left the hardware store, the car was gone, and only the man with the mobile phone was left loitering in the car park, eyeing up the loads people were packing into the boots of their cars.

Later, in the supermarket, a strong smell of vinegar started to follow me around and it got stronger by the time I reached the checkout. It was so strong I started smelling up close some of the items in my basket, first the jar of gherkins, then the fresh salmon, but both showed no signs of leakage. Then a woman at the checkout next to me dropped a big jar of pickled onions which shattered on the floor. The smell of vinegar slowly abated.