I evict the spider from his home. He'll start again.

Pub Quiz

'Who wrote the Pink Panther theme' is the only one I get. On the way out I smash a glass and everybody cheers.

I remember how much I love to make and eat soup.

the deer methodically stripped my garden of flowers
leaving me this single yellow tulip - what a gift!

scattered dandelions, the shock of gorse, this man with black bushy eye-brow's reflective jacket, yolky streetsigns, primroses the colour of distilled Spring dropped into milk

Ranunculus on the window-sill

The flowers Esther bought me still look freshly cut two weeks after she left. Their pale frilled petals are rimmed with clotted blood.

The false economy of a cheap seed mix

The blue tits dealt with the cheap seed mix by jabbing up seed after seed, turning their heads, and spitting them out onto the ground before finding something worth eating. Instead I pour in pure sunflower seeds. Their papery husks are the same black and white as the stripes at the tips of this great tit's wing-feathers. He visits the feeder over and over, retreating into the safety of the hedge-insides to hold each seed in his feet and peck the goodness out.

Spring

...a sprinkling of rocket seeds here, a scattering of french breakfast radish here...

After drinking tea with Hazel, I realise I don't need to go to the shiny mall to buy things any more.

a lazy day achieving nothing - who says the other kind are better?

a pair of tealights in red glass pots add dots of warmth to the room,
rosy cheeks on a bundled-up-against-the-cold child

Beale Park, low season

I squat for ten minutes and regard the capybara.
The capybara's big old eyes regard me.

In the blue vase

Cadbury-cream-egg daffodils with multi-layered ruffled yolky coronas.

two squabbling blackbirds, their needle beaks daffodil-coloured

sitting meditation for the first time in several weeks

my body shudders rhythmically as uptight-ness dissolves into my breath

a very flat pigeon, very dead

on the underground walkway wall

under a cartoon of a cock and balls, three scrawled words: 'ur mums dik'

What is it all for?
Time to make tea.

Jam

An hour and a half to travel less than a mile. The man on the tangled roundabout screams at the man in the jeep who pushes in. He uses all his breath and throws the words like spears. The car holds them. He leans his face into his hands.

five people around a pub table

she doesn't make eye contact. he hides behind his newspaper. she hides behind her smile. he drifts in and out. she tries to put them all together and make a whole.

I start the morning by clearing up cat sick. What else would I do with it?

Car boot sale

She stops me to explain how her stall works - every ticket I buy would get me a prize. Her car behind her is filled to the brim with stuff. I imagine she lives alone, maybe with a cat. She wants me to be impressed. Before she's even started to speak I am looking at her with pity.

squirrel on the bird table

the squirrel hunkers down, shielded from the rain, and enjoys his easy breakfast

I've learnt a new word for these shiny yellow spots blanketing the side of the drive - celandine

This morning I startled three deer just over by the wood pile - they all looked at me with their liquid eyes. One of them was thinner than the others. I was glad they'd eaten all my flowers, will plant more for them next year.

words spoken out loud to myself after struggling for ten minutes to put a king size duck down duvet back into its cover

-you're a big duvet, aren't you?
-yes I am. I'm a big duvet.

the hungry deer ate every crocus and tulip overnight
leaving a single red and yellow bloom bit off at the neck

cleaning practice

I try to love the grimy spot in the corner of the bathroom

the argument blows over quickly, leaving me to examine the pale purple stripes on the blowsy crocus tops, to peek inside the tangerine stamens

city park

a man is reading out his russian paper to himself, so he can hear his native language and feel at home. a photographer is told to get off the grass. the hellebores wait for their heads to be lifted and admired.