The morning after the poetry reading

The memory of the lilting hypnotic voice of Sinead Morrissey weaves its silvery way into the fabric of my day.

Red pencil

He lies stretched out on the wood of the table, killing time. Where his body meets his neck, his red costume has been shaved into a ring of curves like a frilly collar. He lies dreaming of plain A3 and waiting to be sharpened.

Swaddled

For twenty minutes the landscape is lit up by a yellow glow. It's as if someone has noticed the afternoon drawing on and turned on their standing lamp, so they can see the words in their book more clearly, and feel swaddled against the dark.

Before the sun comes up

A white rabbit bottom dancing in the headlights, disappearing into the dark.

Russian hat

Before I return from fetching a pen, he's jumped into the shadow of my warmth and curled into sleep. From here he looks like a hat cast off by a Russian, just in from the cold and with deep red spots on his cheeks.

Holiday

The under-cover shopping mall was massive, the hageen dazs too creamy and too sweet. A hat and pair of gloves each from the pound shop kept them warm on walks along the beach.

Hanging on by my fingertips

A place to rest on Friday.

All work and no play

makes Fiona a tired girl with no stones in her pockets

Unthunk

A wasted journey gives me the time to think about something that would have remained unthunk.

Jigsaw in a doctor's waiting room

Her father is struggling to fit together the pieces long after his daughter has moved on to rolling a toy car towards her mother.

Frozen windscreen

The credit card rends the ice from the glass in clean sheets.

On the other side of the window

I don't know its name, but it wears a coat of long wiry strands of segmented dark green. They are like pipe-cleaners, bent into underwater shapes and roiling in the currents. If I squint my eyes I can see them undulating, as tiny fish dart between the clumps.

Eight seagulls

I stop to watch eight seagulls lined up on the rail until a pigeon spoils their symmetry. The ducks and geese gathered around my shadow tread water and pretend they're doing something else. The cold pulls tears from my eyes.

White-breath morning

The frost-brittle leaves make a hollow scratching sound as they fall.

Sunlight is dripping all over the houses opposite

but it's still cold outside.

No spaces in the hospital car park

Cars circle like vultures.

Sky

Now the sky is lobster pink and scuffed with creamy cloud, and now it is the blue of deep water. Jellyfish float just out of view.

Out to sea

Early morning: the first hint of blue seeping into the black, and the lights in the far distance become ships floating miles above the sea floor, cold water slapping against their sides.

Vehicle recovery man

When he hands the form to me to sign I notice that his hands are shaking. He's in his mid-fifties, maybe towards the end of his career. Even though there's lots of room he says yes when I offer to stay and make sure he gets the van round OK. He's grateful.

It isn't

It isn't a bonfire in the distance, crackling and fizzing as the mist drops and people pull on their jumpers, but a luminous orange wind-sock rippling in the wind.

The joy of eating sushi on a train

mmmmmmmmmmm sushi

Busy

The whole day filled with too many things. Choosing a small stone is like trying to decide on a grain of sand from a beach.

"McChina Wok Away"

The infinite quirky creativity of restaurant owners.

Streetlamp

A bowl of light balanced on a pole, looking down on the shivering tree. The leaves are tired, they are ready to let go.

Ten minutes of nothing

or rather ten minutes of paying attention to my breath, or rather ten minutes of returning my attention to my breath as my thoughts skip around like a five year old on Christmas morning.

Peppermint tea

Clear and green, like a waft of pine needles.

Someone else's front garden

The bush's branches are dripping with red berries. From inside the house three ginger cats watch me walk past with faint interest.

From a strange bed

Last night from a strange bed, the water dripping from the guttering sounds like someone bouncing a tennis ball, or slapping their hands on a table, hard. They sound angry.

Blinked and missed it

When did the tree on the other side of the fence at the bottom of our road get so wide? When did it get so red?

Bliss

Sitting in a cafe with sun streaming in, rearranging words until they fit.