Stryd Fawr Llandaf // Llandaff Hight Street

I stood in fine rain and wrote what I saw. I had done this once before, briefly, but not in the wet:

Blue glass sky with Cumulus clouds Swifts Skimming screaming Chasing Yellow traffic warden watching ticketing Slipping notes

Standing waiting on Llandaf High Street

Sound of bicycle breaks

Smell of after-shave from man running to cash point machine on other side of the road

Piercing alarm from somewhere close. Stopped 
continued.... Link to full original text

This time I stood there for longer: 

I walked up to the telephone box. It has a feast ice-cream advert on it, all yellow background, red and brown, with a bit of white, on this grey day.

The sound of a chicken.

A woman in a [reddish] purple jacket posts a letter in the big letter box. Now a car beside the letter box starts its engine and eventually turns right across the road into an alley then reverses out up the road so as to go down the road. A silver car had already lined up waiting to reverse in, which is perhaps why the other car took so long to move out.

There are drips from the gutter of the hairdressers beside me, traffic quietens on the main road as the red light stops it and I hear them. I think I went to this hairdresser and had my hair cut by someone from Cardigan the same age as me, so we knew people in common, via hockey matches between our schools.

A blue car hoots its horn before reversing into a parking space two down from the silver one. A woman in a purple coat looks. She gets into the red car behind the silver car and swiftly moves out, noses into the alley and turns round. A big blue crane lorry and trailer on the main road. Heels clonk clock, big heels; they are chunky, I see, as the woman crosses the road. A young woman with a pushchair comes smoothly up the slope past me. A highway maintenance van comes down the hill and turns right on the main road as two seagulls make a racket on a roof.

LINK TO FULL TEXT 

This is additional texts from the cafe:

Into café…

White chairs and tables, white teapot, white milk jug, white cup and saucer, white pot for sugar; sugar in red and white tube wrappers.

Reflecting: I had wanted to stand down the hill from the post box not up the hill, where I had stood before, but that would have placed me outside the card and toy shop that sells scented candle stuff…it seeps out into the pavement area; not quite as dense as Lush, but more than I would like to hang about in. The writing has left my right hand, still [after meander through Spar and the flower and gift shop ordering lunch, pouring tea] a bit numb at finger and thumb tips, with pain up my arm and under, then up my neck to my head. I was using the best pen for the job: Stabilo Easy Pen. It’s so much easier writing at a table.

Tickityticketytick I’ll just text the girls. Squeak of a cupboard or something, door; crockery being stacked, cutlery being moved, A radio – talking, just beyond distinguishing words. Do you want any sauces ladies? Mayo? She hasn’t got a Welsh accent. She basically grew up coffee machine noise she then went to hot milk machine BBC Radio Wales hot milk machine noise gets thicker, denser network hiss hum a really hard hitting story. Thank you.

One of the Thomas Kent Clocks for sale is at a tilt in this immaculate white and eau de nil room. Crunch crunch crunch:  a man who has just walked in sorts out the small Joe’s ice-cream freezer; a pale turquoise and white freezer that fits the colour scheme. They’re in the bottom. A very pretty, 4ft maybe, artificial Christmas tree sits beside it, the branches are sparse and larch like.

That’s 3.90 please. What do you think isn’t it funny or microwave open shut and set with lots of peeping. Crockery and cutlery. A chair is carefully pulled away from a table. Except at election time. Milk froth noise and microwave hum. I did my degree on how the same stories are reported in different papers. Guardian and Telegraphs… I used my English degree. Can I get you anything? English language was quite mathematical, a lot of syntax. Cutlery stacked Roehampton click clatter how was journalist? you probably did your research. I’ll tell work to tell her to come in. Can you imagine though? Ah there we are, endless letters.

Someone is walking down the wooden stairs, cluck cluck of heels as she walks through the café to the door, beebo clunk clunk. She is wearing a purple jumper. The one on the train with the addiction to heroin. There was an anorexic one too. Similar territory interweaving a far right politician. Yes I’ve seen that. It only works because of him; I don’t think it was a particularly well made documentary. I like it when he first walks over and says so you are the interviewer. It was an extraordinary conversation. I wanted to do the research. Beebo of door, the woman in the purple jumper comes in goes to the counter then out again beebo

The final scene visual: [you will need to read the original text...]