Parrots bundle on benches and bus shelters, a fumbling undulation of alien colour in the northern grey. They weren’t here last week, and I’m not sure they were here this morning, but now they’re everywhere, mimicking the local long, flat vowels as they ask passers-by for crackers and assert their collective prettiness. It goes without saying that it’s a consequence of global warming, but everyone says it anyway, except for the AI avatar who informs us they arrived in small boats, and are here to steal our seeds and run up vet bills that they’ll never pay. It’s unseasonably warm, and my winter coat still hangs in the wardrobe I inherited from my grandparents, where it may well remain for my handful of remaining days. Instead, I don a tie-dyed shirt and join the fluttering feathers which now crowd the high street, snapping up shades and sunscreen for the long, long summer that’s just around the corner
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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