25/12: On my early stroll, by the zebra crossing, one Belisha beacon working, one not, Like the cheapest open-air disco you ever saw.
27/12: On my early drizzly stroll I pretend I’m in a film noir walking the mean streets of ~LA until a bloke with a dog says “ R8 kid! Cold ’un!”
28/12: On my early stroll I’m battered by the breeze, a skiff on the pavement’s lake. A bit of old Christmas paper like a gull with holly wings.
29/12: Early stroll. Find a pound coin on the pavement. Beats that 5p I found the other day. Moonlight alchemy!
30/12: On my early stroll I’m struck by the simple beauty of a No Entry sign. The red circle, the white line. It has the power of art.
5/1/2013: Different ways of looking at the moon: gaze, peer, peep, stare, glance, gawp. Pointing sometimes, like today. It was so beautiful.
6/1: Early stroll. The moon hasn’t turned up. I’ve been moon-jilted. Maybe it’s slept in. Sky like an empty purse with no coin in it.
8/1: Early stroll. Beautiful sliver of a moon low in the sky. I could almost touch it. I will. I daren’t. I might. Would it feel cold? I daren’t.
20/1: Just took the snowgrip things off my shoes. They feel like something you might find in the haunted wing of a lingerie shop.
21/1: Early snowy stroll. I find myself trudging, so I try to vary it: jazz trudge/hero trudge/tap trudge/thoughtful trudge/satirical trudge/trudge.
28/1: Early stroll. A man at the bus stop wearily lifts his arm as the bus approaches: it’s an exhausted hand-jive, an almost-signal, a wavelet.
16/2: Early stroll. I come across three discarded pens, and an empty pack of headache tablets. A poet’s passed by, I reckon.
23/2: Early stroll. Here we go, another day to seize, from aubade to nocturne, from first kettle on to last light off!
1/3: Early stroll. Birds fly across the moon, blossom begins to appear on a tree down the hill. I’m walking through a haiku, it seems.
3/3: Early stroll. I’ve eaten my apple then find another apple on the pavement. Tempted to eat it, so tempted. Barnsley: garden of Eden. Me: Adam.
8/3: Early stroll. I say Good Morning to a bloke in a camouflage jacket and he seems surprised that I can see him.
9/3: Early stroll. There’s a door in a skip and I’m tempted to open it, go through, find a mystical and magical land. Somebody stares at me from a bus.
10/3: Freezing early stroll. Grit wagon trundles by and sprays me. Now I’m gritty. I’ll go home and write a country song and a detective novel.
11/3: Early stroll. By the almost-demolished school, a bunch of red fire extinguishers like chess pieces waiting for a game. Snow speckling them.
12/3: Early stroll. I see the bloke in the camouflage jacket again, but walking behind is a man in a hi-vis jacket. His evil twin/ soul/conscience?
14/3: Early stroll. A big piece of gold-coloured wrapping paper, lifted by a breeze, flies towards me like a primitive sculpture of a mythical bird.
23/3: Early snowy stroll. A craving for colour in the white. So, thanks to blue bag in tree, green sparkly hat in front of car, crushed marker pen.
29/3: Early stroll. Cold, brilliant blue morning. By the flats where the farm used to be I remember a fire, burning hay. I was 6. My face warms.
30/3: Early stroll. An empty bus passes and I crouch to look at the moon through its moving windows. The driver slows down, thinks I want to get on.
7/4: Early stroll. A mystery by the demolished school: a small box with HARMONICA written on it but no harmonica in it. I stand and listen: birds.
8/4: On my early stroll my left shoelace unravels itself: so that’s what walking is, a gradual progression that leaves you naked. Better speed up.
14/4: Early stroll. I walk past a door and the smell of toast and the sound of someone whistling and I want to go in and eat and whistle.
15/4: Early stroll. Beautiful visual image of five garage doors in a row, each door a different colour: a green/a blue/a green/a brown/a blue.
20/4: Early stroll. A row of black socks on a washing line seems to be walking in front of a tree just beginning to sprout pink blossom. I find 50p.
21/4: Early stroll. I wish I knew the proper names for clouds, but I don’t. So I’ll call that one George, that one Thinking, that one Yesterday.
25/4: Early stroll. Meet my brother who looks just like me. Our voices mingle in the morning air. Our breath hangs in sibling sentences.
26/4: Early stroll. I often see that horse in that tiny field but this is the first time I’ve seen that trampoline in the corner. Possibilities.
27/4: Early stroll. That house joined onto the dancing school is To Let. Imagine living there, living near rhythm. Living near jazz and tap.
2/5: Early stroll. I’ve walked up and down these hills for fifty years so I must have worn a groove. I’m erosion on my own.
4/5: Early stroll. I stand, as I often do, where the long-demolished football factory was, to listen for the sound of ghost footballs being made.
12/5: Early stroll. An abandoned ironing board near the paint shop. Six snails move towards it. A bread van lurches as it passes: inside, rolls roll.
16/5: Early stroll. A runner gasps by. The grumpy bloke who never returns my Good Morning returns it grumpily as we walk through fallen blossom.
18/5: Early stroll. Dandelion clocks in verges. Abandoned football on top of a bus shelter, looking like the moon. Clocks/moon: time/space stroll.
19/5: Early stroll. A tiny snail rushes towards a huge snail. A discarded lipstick sits on the floor, waiting for a smile.
26/5: Early stroll. Bright sunshine, and a full moon dawdling over my brother’s allotment, which is bathed in sunlight, moonlight, lettuce-light.
30/5: Early stroll. It’s such a lovely morning that I feel my shadow wanting to skip. I try to resist, but my shadow insists. Roof pigeons watch.
2/6: Early stroll. Equine excitement on the street: four escaped horses corralled into a front garden by a passer-by. House owner still asleep.
3/6: Early stroll. A plane makes a chalk mark across the sky. Passengers look down and say “there’s @IMcMillan on his stroll. We’re in his tweet”.
4/6: Early stroll. Under a sky the colour of boredom I hold my stomach in as I pass a Slimming World poster and almost tread on a slug.
5/6: Early stroll. Sculptures: the wheelie bin monoliths, the single stone placed on the low wall, the imperfect pavement circle of spilled pop.
13/6: Early stroll. A home-made (stick and string) bow and arrow on the floor. I pick them up. On the corner: a hubcap that could be a shield.
15/6: Early stroll. Muggy, damp. Two snails make their slow way towards two discarded beer cans near the roundabout. Party time next Tuesday.
30/6: Early stroll. A helicopter flies very low over my head just as I walk by a huge white arrow in the road that’s pointing at me. I walk faster.
6/7: Early stroll. Mist over the valley where the pit was. An empty eggshell on the floor as though the mist has escaped from the egg.
9/7: Early stroll. A fridge-freezer in a garden like the start of a fridgehenge, and a bus full of people in hi-vis jackets like a sun on wheels.
27/7: Early stroll. Dozens of snails climbing Mr Moody’s garden wall. Slow music on a brick piano. Rose petal patterns on the path.
28/7: Early stroll. Two small blue betting-shop pens on the floor tell a tale of hope. A single stick of rhubarb points Northward.
30/7: Early stroll. Someone has placed a hubcap on a low wall; it’s like a grey metal sunrise. I lean to try and align it with the real sunrise.
31/7: Early stroll. That brick-shaped piece of polystyrene means that someone, somewhere is building a polystyrene house. 4th little pig, maybe.
2/8: Early stroll. I find a single jigsaw piece by the empty houses. Turn it over: a blue sky. The man on the mobility scooter waves.
19/8: Early stroll. A vivid sunrise over the old pit then, unbelievably, a single orange button by the bakery. The sunrise represented.
22/8: Early stroll. Mist over the valley, the trees poking like broccoli. The man in the Men at Work sign is still wearing wellies. The moon hides.
23/8: Early stroll. In the soft-edged rain I buy a big bag of porridge at the shop then trudge down the street like a disappointing/surreal Santa.
24/8: Early stroll accompanied by the nihilistic dance music of a burglar alarm. Three party poppers stuck to the wall of the betting-shop: win!
26/8: Early stroll. The few pink clouds fade, reflecting the pink rose petals scattered on the pavement. Beside the chip forks. And that biscuit.
28/8: Early stroll. Moon like a half-constructed emoticon. A runner pounds by so I increase my walking speed momentarily. As does that ginger cat.
30/8: Early stroll. Bright cool morning. As I pass the streetlights they go out and I try to ignore the stone in my shoe which nags like a memory.
6/9: Early stroll. A few leaves on the floor like scouts for autumn’s wagon train. The temporary traffic lights are at red and I stand very still.
11/9: Early stroll. Three white vans pass, followed by a black van, then a white van. Like a chess game on wheels. One overtakes. One turns off.
14/9: Early stroll. Couldn’t find my glasses so the sunrise glowed like a three-bar electric fire and the grumpy bloke shone like a shaky angel.
15/9: Early stroll under shifting, dramatic skies. A white van trundles by, the passenger holding a map. I see it twice more: lost, wandering.
20/9: Early stroll. The moon slips in and out of the clouds, auditioning for a horror film. I stand in front of the new CCTV camera, holding a cucumber.
22/9: Early stroll. The moon hangs in the sky like an idea I wish I’d had. Two carers rush to change a flat tyre. Someone waits in a room somewhere.
23/9: Early stroll. Single lights: the security light illuminating the cemetery, the car with one headlight like a radioactive monocle, a bathroom.
26/9: Early stroll. Dark and quiet. The man on the mobility scooter nods as he rattles by, crushing a discarded Bob Marley cassette, tape waving.
30/9: Early stroll. I eat an apple from my tree under a fingernailclipping moon. The two grey-haired ladies walk by me laughing. I spit a pip high.
6/10: Early stroll. Vivid constellations remind me how small I am. A man says “Has tha seen a white dog?” Is that it there, shining in The Plough?
14/10: Early stroll. Morning still as a coat hanging in a wardrobe. I find a shiny penny beside a red removal van from Cornwall. A man’s cig glows.
15/10: Early stroll. Five minutes later than usual, so I pass different people. The bus shelter is empty. That light is on. That light is off.
19/10: Early stroll. Can you be dazzled by the moon? This morning I was. A red necklace lies on the path like a jewelled snake. Two shattered brollies.
21/10: Early stroll. A white cat looks at a white car, as though trying to decide what kind of cat it is. Two people ignore my cheery “Morning!”
22/10: Early stroll. The scaffolding on the pub throws beautiful shadows in the pavement. Raised voices from an upstairs room. A hedgehog bustles by.
30/10: Early stroll. I wish I could save this morning’s light in a shoebox and release it on a gloomy December afternoon.
1/11: Early stroll. In the heavy mist, a discarded 2p coin gleams like a fallen moon. I pocket it. Hens cluck at me from behind a hedge.
3/11: Early stroll. The sky is a delicate, questioning blue. That green box I moved off the road yesterday waits for me on the pavement, frostily.
5/11: Early stroll. Rain flecks my glasses and a man in a black coat and black hat passes with a black dog on a lead. Only the lead is visible.
18/11: Early stroll. A light goes off in a bedroom and on in a kitchen, as though light has fallen downstairs. Loaves are put on the bakery shelves.
22/11: Early stroll. Perspective and slope make that man as tall as a tree. A red van parked by a white van: wine on wheels.
24/11: Early stroll. A tennis ball sits in the pavement like a failed idea; the two older women who walk most mornings smile at the Christmas lights.
26/11: Early stroll. The moon is a huge grin in the sky. The dead cat by the Post Office looks oddly peaceful. The paper boy’s head is down, hood up.
28/11: Early stroll. The moon is in and out of the clouds. My old house is empty, but it has new windows. I lift a fallen bin. It clatters.
30/11: Early stroll. A clear sky vivid with stars and an astonishing sliver of almost-orange moon. Two skinny men in tracksuits appear from shadows.
2/12: Early stroll. Over several months that cardboard box has turned to mulch. It has a time-based beauty. I slip on it, laugh, slip again.
3/12: Early stroll. I’m held by the sight of leaves falling from a tree in the cemetery. The man in the paper shop draws his wife a map.
5/12: Early stroll. Those hedges have been trimmed so the view down that back street is different. I refuse simile, even when I see a red glove.
6/12: Early stroll. A woman in bright white shoes waits in a darkened bus shelter. A kid goes by on a bike with his hands in his pockets. Puddles.
7/12: Early stroll. Sign on a lamp post: LOST BLACK LAB. A man whizzes by on a bike, coat flapping like a super-hero’s cape. Cycleman!
8/12: Early stroll. A man comes out of his house, looks at the ladders on top of his van as though he’s contemplating climbing them to the moon.
13/12: Early stroll. The ginger cat beside the tarpaulined caravan. The tattered circus poster. The lit snooker table in the empty pub.
