It’s the first bin day of the new year: general landfill. I made sure my lilac sacks were securely tied and primed the night before and my alarm clock set so I might rise in good time to minimise potential mishap. The Man at Number 29 had clearly taken no such precautions given his frantic bag-handed dash down the street in futile pursuit of the lorry.

Trudging slowly through the wet streets

back to the house where your bins weren’t emptied.

And all the bags you found

that you forgot to put out, Armageddon,

come Armageddon, come Armageddon, come.

Any feelings of residential primacy were short-lived. Dave, Martin and Marvin were unloading items for the new term from their VW Beetle when I returned from work. These included a seven-piece drum-kit (Dave is an acoustic engineering student), a Moog modular synthesizer (Martin is a music technology student) and a life-size anatomical skeleton (Marvin is a sociology student but one with a rather peculiar fetish for medical supplies and equipment). They high-fived me as they headed in next door.

I went into my own house, which was still in something of a state from last night. There were books all over the sitting-room floor and my Morrissey singles lay scattered as if someone had summoned a nuclear bomb.

Saturday January 6th

Anthem for Doomed Christmas Trees

What passing bells for trees who lie in gutters?

Only the monstrous rumble of the vans

will drown out their silent cries. No muttered

prayers, no roadside eulogies or thanks.

Doorstep-dumped, no longer spruce,

who now will pine for you and cry?

Unbaubled, untinseled, stripped of use,

off to the Great Wood Chipper in the Sky;

How long has it been – two or three weeks? –

since we laid out our gifts at your feet?

How quickly the present becomes the past

and time sweeps all needles from its path.

I dumped my tree on the pile at the edge of the park and returned to find Sophie waiting outside my house with Dylan. She rarely says a word directly to me these days, preferring instead to communicate through a combination of hand gestures and glowers. She handed him over to me with a look that clearly meant: return him to me in one piece or you’ll be the next to have your baubles removed.

We headed off to football, where important father–son bonding takes place over unfailingly inclement weather, volleys of verbal abuse from opposition parents, and humiliating, life-scarring defeats. Today’s trouncing is a respectable 0–8. Dylan, isolated on the wing, just stood on the touchline for most of the game, shivering. Rob Trafford, the Under 16s’ beleaguered and chronically inept manager, declared it to be ‘a season-defining performance’. It was hard to disagree with him.

We arrived back home to the ominous signs of party preparations being made next door.

Sunday January 7th

I Did Not Tell Death Where I Lived

I did not tell Death where I lived,