“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Oscar Wilde.
Miranda Keeling is a published author and observer of everyday life. You can find her amazing work on X @MirandaKeeling. What follows is the poor man's version of things observed through my own eyes. Warning may contain swearing.
May 2025
1st
A woman of slight build with dark curly hair walks a dog of slight build with dark curly hair, once more providing conclusive proof to the old adage that dogs look like their owners
On the hottest day of the year a young looking vicar, maybe in his early to mid 30s, walks down a hill staring intently at his mobile phone in hand. On his lower half shorts showing off his lily white legs. On top a black shirt fully buttoned up complete with white dog collar which surely in this heat is rather ironically the literal definition of hell on earth.
A woman pushes her young son in his buggy. He's holding a stuffed dinosaur in his hand, a little pork pie hat on top of his head to keep off the midday sun. His mother is talking in an eastern European language, possibly Polish as he answers in perfect English over and over No No No No No
Apologising is such a fundamental British trait especially when the circumstances don't actually call for it. Last Sunday I point out the gate on a field of sheep and lambs wasn't closed on properly and the guy said sorry to me. I pointed out no apology needed to me as I didn't care but the farmer has a shotgun and might well shoot him if the flock escaped which his partner found highly amusing. Tonight a lad in his 20s walking to the gym carrying a water bottle was unbeknownst to him squirting it onto the car park every time he swung his arm. Only when he drinks it do I decide it wasn't deliberately being done and point it out and again he says sorry. I'm like I don't care I just thought in ten minutes you might be thinking where the fuck did my water go?
The bark of a silver birch has come away from several feet of the trunk like a sausage that's skin has burst under the intense heat because someone forgot to prick it before cooking it.
2nd
Overnight literally thousands of crop saplings have pushed through bone dry dirt like someone has pushed playdough from beneath through tiny holes in a vast surface
Two lambs smash their heads into the teats of their mother. It's been two scorching hot days, half her winter coat has fallen off. Somehow she still appears unfazed by it all. Men of any species really don't know they're born half the time
Two black lambs are the wrong side of a fence from the rest of the flock and are devouring a small bush. On the early evidence they'll be the literal definition of what we would call the black sheep of the family one day
A man on a Vespa wears a helmet with a long black visor that wouldn't look out of place on an astronaut. It slowly pulls up a steep hill with absolutely no danger of breaking through the earth's atmosphere
A muntjac appears from nowhere and runs straight out into a road thankfully with nothing coming near side, an already slowing large Volvo estate on the other. Oh deer.
3rd
A red biro lays crushed in the road. Whilst the pen is mightier than the sword it's not mightier than the car wheel
A sheep calls out in a low growl which you'd be forgiven for thinking was a Wookie if you closed your eyes
A woman sits atop a large tree stump sketching by a lake, warmed by spring sunshine to the left. She looks up from her pad and smiles. She has the art of relaxation down to a tee
4th
A pigeon sits atop of a silver wing mirror as if trying to blend in with the vehicle like a weird optional colour matched extra
Dozens of swifts fly low over a lake with a series of intricate tight turns and then off to the side to loop back for a further raid like a squadron of nature's second world war Spitfires
A teenage boy rather admirably is walking with a litter picker and giant bin bag thus restoring my faith in human nature. He even says hello. I'm not sure he could have picked me off the floor if I'd fainted with surprise
A little boy with a mop of curly blonde hair cascading from underneath a cycling helmet whizzes along with a huge smile on his face on a training bike
A weathervane atop a dove cot is doing its job pushed about by the winds. Each push is met with evidence that it's probably not been oiled since the day it first went up. It squeaks like a giant rat hungry for its dinner.
A young couple walk in complete silence. No relationship can ever last long term without a basic form of communication, the initial physical attraction never enough
Sight of my first squashed hedgehog of the year. Tough enough to ever see, made worse given it was two inches from the relative safety of the curb
5th
An old man walks his dog wearing a dark pink jumper and salmon colour trousers looking like he could have come straight from an episode of Balamory
Traditional bank holiday Monday in the UK which is code for the fact it's raining. A couple shelter under an umbrella whereas two people half a way up a steep hill have gone one better and are stood under a huge tree now complete with its spring foliage. I'm just getting wet
As a cloud passes the sun, a field that had been in its shade suddenly lights up with thousands of buttercups warmed by sunlight.
6th
Fighter jets punch their way through the sky but you'll have to trust your hearing at the sound of the jet engines as they're hidden from view behind cloud cover
The cathedral tower is illuminated red and blue on the night Inter take on Barca in the Champions League. I'm no more than 70 yards away when Inter score the goal that knocks Barca out or the tournament. Some things you just couldn't make up
7th
From a distance it appears that a mother is walking with her son in one hand, with a baby carrier attached to her front. Coming closer the woman is much older than I'd envisaged and not only do I revise my opinion to one that she's the boy's grandmother but it transpires the baby is actually the head of a stuffed toy dog poking out of the top of her jacket. Thankfully she doesn't appear to be a mindreader
I'm at the poor man's zoo as a pair of pigeons sit on a fence looking amorous touching each other's heads being watched by a Persian cat from a living room window. One house down a forlorn looking black dog hunched over the back of a sofa is looking out the window, presumably for someone to get home and make a fuss out of it
Around a dozen lambs are stood all together. One looks like it's practicing for a ballet recital as it jumps and kicks out its back legs. Another practices something entirely different, let's call it leap frog as it mounts another from behind. Another two square off and the more timid of the two springs back like a surprised cat might do.
A combine is spraying crops with specialised attachments which make it as wide as some commercial aeroplanes. I'm trying to work out how you turn with something that wide and perhaps the man driving it was too busy over thinking the same thing as he over shoots his stopping point by a good couple of feet and ends up partially in a ditch. Somehow he does manage to reverse back out but more by good fortune than anything else.
A triangulated window juts out from the side of a house. In the far pane of glass the reflection of a woman in white gives a ghostly feel like she's floating as she then vanishes into darkness. I mean really it's just a woman in her nighty turning off her light to go to bed but there's no fun in writing that
A muntjac calmly strolls past less than 10 feet away appearing to be as domesticated as a cat. In zero hurry just calmly strolling along.
8th
A crow is stood in the road and as a car comes along it calmly hops to the open lane and repeats the process the other way expending very little energy and a reminder of just how smart other creatures are in nature
Today fighter jets are on full display and not hidden by the clouds. Two fly overhead initially staggered but one flies alongside like you'd imagine a police car might do in a chase. Can you shout pull over in a fighter jet?
On what was previously a council estate a white Bentley is parked. I'm trying to work out why if you owned a Bentley you'd have such a bizarre paint job on the bonnet. As I get closer I can see the vehicle is covered in grey, pink and black paint where someone has attacked it from all angles.
To the east the sun begins to move onto elsewhere in the world to bring warmth to the day, to the south west the moon shines bright white as if waving goodbye to it's larger golden friend
9th
In the night sky as I walk along the positioning of the moon and a bright star are changing at such a rapid rate that it becomes disorientating. Only when I stand still do I realise the star is actually a plane flying several thousand feet in the air.
A white gull glides across the sky, its underbelly glowing in the last of the days sunshine
10th
A crop field glimmers under the spring sun, blown about by strong winds giving the eye an impression of a faux sea
A woman in her late 20s rides over the crest of a small but steep hill looking very much like she's ready to call it quits
A family of four pretend they're goldfish with their ground floor hotel curtain windows open. A young boy is laid down on the window sill, the father to his left. Wife and daughter in bed, the mother with the covers pulled up. One assumes they're watching TV or a fifth family member out of sight playing charades
2212 and a group fall out of a pub blind drunk, stumbling and chanting. A great reminder if ever one was needed as to why I remain sober after a decade. They won't remember it come the morning but their day will be written off on this evidence
11th
A sheep emerges from a bush however it doesn't get far as it finds itself entangled in large knotweed. It thinks it's managed to break free and stops unaware it's still firmly in its grip
A young boy learns about the combination of speed and fine gravel behind me as he smashes into the ground
A village cricket game has ground to a halt as five fielders desperately search the long grass at one end for a missing ball
12th
Three workers from Anglian Water are stood around a strip of grass. The oldest is holding a metal pole which he pumps into the ground and places his ear over an orange rubber cone. I'm trying hard not to stare and failing miserably as he repeats the process. Did he use divining rods before I arrived?
A man is trying to produce bubbles for three children to chase after. Following a disappointing series of small bubbles he finally produces one as large as a football which goes all of a foot before bursting over a girls school dress
15th
A man in his late 20s wears a black hoodie with the initials FC emblazoned in large white letters on the front. Had there been a team name you'd suggest it referred to - football club. As there was no name and he blanked me with no pleasantries exchanged even when I smiled I'd suggest it stands for f*cking c*nt
From inside the gates of the cemetery two owls call out to one another. The first with a loud screech, the second with a far more pleasant and almost jovial sounding hoooo
With the majority of the town tucked up at home late into the night the sound of a goods train can be heard from a good half a mile or more away
16th
An old man is wearing a hoodie pulled up, he sports a massive pair of silver can headphones around his neck, thick bottle glass spectacles that would probably act as binoculars to the average man on the street. As he walks he's mumbling bum, bum, bum like he's conducting an orchestra in his mind. Maybe he's a cyberman that went wrong in the production process and is malfunctioning
Two German couples walk down the road, one of the women claps her hands together like a sea lion and laughs old loud. Maybe the invasion has started 85 years too late
17th
A sheep and its two lambs walk down the gravel track looking like any human family out for a morning stroll
Two crows team up and circle a kite which had been circling dangerously over their territory and manage to get it to vacate the area. They then fly back in formation probably feeling quite chuffed with their efforts
The gate on a field of sheep has been left wide open. People's stupidity never ceases to amaze me.
A girl on a bike slightly too big for her uses her sandals as brakes down a gravel track. I'd not be surprised to learn tomorrow that a large part of her day was spent in accident and emergency
A toddler in his pushchair giggles with the biggest grin on its face as it holds onto a dog lead, not with a canine on the other end but his mother. With his little pot belly he reminds me of one of the little red Buddhas that were sold everywhere in the early 2000s just not as red
Half way down a hill a girl of about 8 vaults off the side of a bench made from a felled tree. A couple who I assume to be her grandparents stand motionless. She rounds it off with a perfect cartwheel and I'm at least hugely impressed on her behalf even if they weren't. Some people are just born miserable
A family of four on a bike ride all wear the same lurid luminous green helmets. Makes them easier to spot in a crowd I guess if you lost one member and potentially even from space
Across the town's oldest cemetery Jump Around by House of Pain blares out which is surely odd enough in itself until you identify the source of the music which is coming from inside the cathedral.
20th
From the other side of an incredibly tall hedge obscuring any view into a garden someone is singing so badly that I'm not convinced that even autotune could help get her into key. Shame the hedge isn't as effective at keeping the sound in as it is keeping eyes out. That would have made the X Factor audition highlights it was so bad
A sheep has escaped from a field and is eating the crops like a fat man eats cake. It's Happy Easter, Happy Christmas and Happy fucking Hanukkah all rolled into one. Well until I rocked up, son of Suffolk and said ‘get back in Ewe’ which amazingly it did. Two small lambs charged to their mother who pretends to care that they've been re-united. Her reaction on the other side however way more telling where the grass truly was greener
24
Rather comically a Deliveroo driver pushes his weight against the frame of his bike over and over willing it on as it struggles up a steep hill. I'd suggest he pedal but the chain is dangling dangerously off. You hope the food is better than the condition of the delivery bike
26th
In the space of less than a week a footpath is infested with sheep shit as far as the eye can see meaning the field is full of dirty baa-stards
A lamb has a thick red stripe from between its ears down to its neck like a low rent budget punk rocker
31st
A young lad practices his golf swing in a farmers field. The first shot he misses, the second goes flat and low for about 30 yards. He then misses twice more and picks up his phone, waits till he thinks I've passed and promptly misses again.
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