A RIOJA RAINBOW

It's Bin Day today. A hard-drinking neighbour's played Jenga with those empty wine bottles. A huge cardboard box for a huge TV leans boastfully against a wall. The sunlight bounces off the wine bottles. A Rioja rainbow. I wonder if my neighbour found her pot of gold at the end?

A SLIGHT NOD

A single green bottle of beer; alone, forlorn on a wall, has reached the end of its song. A sofa lounges in front of a house. A pigeon picks at something in the road as if the Green Cross Code means little. A man waves. At me? I'm far too British to wave back. So I nod. Slightly.

FLEETING

A lorry hisses, a van grinds its gears as they petulantly come to a halt either side of a crossing. Two men cross in opposite directions. Then the lights change and these four lives; lorry, van, man and man, part their synchronised ways, oblivious to their fleeting connection.

THE PERFECT CRIME

Frumpy clouds in a grumpy sky; like great-aunts that may well tell us off at any moment. My garden tingles with the expectation of Spring but can't quite bring itself to grow. An electric saw cuts through the silence of Sunday and I start plans to commit the perfect crime.

JELLY RINGS

Calmness and clear skies have descended upon the town. The tall trees in my garden now flutter after last night's flailing. I wonder if trees have memory? I wonder when they finally fall could we read their concentric rings and see this year's wobbling like a frightened jelly?!

ROCK-A-BYE TOMASZ

The lull before the storm. As a washing machine gently rocks its load before one final fast spin, so the trees sway as if rocking the famous baby in its famous cradle. There are no signs of impending high winds. We are at Nature's mercy - only Tomasz Schafernaker can save us now!

A FROSTY JIG

The air is so thick with frost I'm convinced it can be sliced up and served. The air is so still I feel like an insect in amber. The air is so brittle that I'm certain I could crack it with a toffee hammer. The air is so close that as I draw breath my insides dance a frosty jig.

RIVERDANCING WITH MYSELF

The flap, crackle & flop as a pigeon lands in a hedge. People are dressed as if they're off to commit a bank heist. Balaclavas for this Winter palava. A man stomps on the ground at a bus stop. He's Riverdancing by himself. The bus doors hiss as they open, commenting on the cold.

LANDING LIGHTS

Life from a hotel window. Newcastle wakes up to a weekend.  The Millennium Bridge is still as laid back as ever. The sky almost looks as if someone from above is trying to roll it fat. Each light. Each speck of brightness. They are the landing lights on the runway for  sunrise.

THE PIONEER

Brick gables blush against the warmth of a salacious sun. The naked dance of a beech tree invokes Spring but provokes Winter as the wind rattles its bones. A well-worn dirt path must have begun life as grass and the single decision to try another way. A pioneer of the local park.

OVERDUE AT THE MEMORY LIBRARY

I borrow all my memories 

Just one is overdue

The day you looked me in the eyes

And told me, "I love you."

FAT BALL

A bird hops, picking at my lawn. I want to yell "Look up at the feeder"! resplendent as it is with a hanging fat ball. But it continues to pick. And hop. And pick again.

Sometimes Life's fat ball hangs right above your head. Look up occasionally. Don't settle for the lawn.

A BREATH SO BRIEF

Sunday taps lightly, gently arriving while no one's looking. It's a crisp start. Appropriately the roads are ready salted with grit. The vapour from the breath of a  passer-by bursts into cloudy existence before its frosty dance quickly disappears. A breath so brief has passed.

INVISIBLE HOUSE

An avenue of bare trees is an arboreal nudist colony. I notice there's far chew much gum stuck to the pavements. Those potholes and speed bumps seem to be negatives of each other. Three men with work tools either wait for a lift or have built the world's first invisible house.

SOMEWHERE

I half expect to see houses blown away, replaced by a yellow brick road, such was the ferocity of last night's storm. But here I am still in a black and white Northampton as a pre-dawn sun fails to turn the world Technicolor. No rainbow over town. But it's there.

Somewhere.

INDIGNANT DRAINS

You can have January in any colour as long as it's grey. Rain continues to fall as a long sigh. Tuesday regains a modicum of self-esteem as people begrudgingly begin to remember its name. Indignant drains gurgle, quite put out being asked to work overtime so soon after Christmas.

TIMELESS RESOLUTION

A day of headaches, resolution and the expectation of change. The sun shines but much like my electric fire it's on flame-setting only. Deep underground a few buds and bulbs will twitch with the expectation of Spring. 

Once more, Nature's New Year's resolution is timeless.