Somewhere in
the Midlands a newly bereaved husband sits watching television with his three
small children. A couple plants Jerusalem artichokes on their allotment in Zone
6. Up and
down a street in Bromley, a window cleaner overhears family arguments. In Wiltshire, a
woman and her daughter collect potting compost from molehills on the village green. A man
in Coventry finishes his thesis on bats.
Eggs are delivered to the neighbours, campers moved
on from Flynn’s Pass. In
Honolulu, an elderly lady completes the first draft of her book about
her
murdered friend while her husband teaches online. A woman plucks a stray hair
from her
nose. Somewhere in Brooklyn a woman wonders if they will ever mail her
that tweed hat she
left behind. Mules stand in a field. A man in Bray posts a
picture of an object he has thrown
up into the sky. A boy falls off his bike
and breaks his leg. Lilac grows. Two small children
sleep in a teepee in the
living room. Their mother is one of the first people in Naples to get a
haircut. In California a man films his husband playing the piano. A family’s
new puppy shits
in the kitchen again. A woman in Glasgow is told not to set
foot outside her door for twelve
weeks. Food parcels are delivered. Teenagers
make love in the backseat of a car. On the
island, a woman walks through the
woods in her wellingtons and a kimono. A farmer tears
out 200 metres of nesting
hedgerow. Ponds are built, an origami eagle. A vet straightens a
surfer’s
broken nose on Pendine Beach. A boy finds a crayfish in the lake. His younger
sister
falls headfirst out of the boat. Someone’s ex dies. A girl poses in her
parents’ back yard. A
young woman records birdsong outside her Leyton window. A
mother of two small children
is told her tumour is enflamed. Her husband cycles
three times around the lake. In upstate
New York, her sister pins a rhinoceros
beetle in a display case. Twin girls run naked through
a large house. An artist
couple kiss in front of his painting in their studio in Szczecin. Funeral
services are broadcast live. In downtown Toronto, an aunt sits in her apartment
surrounded by
her life’s work, including the coffee table. A hare runs the
circuit of a yellow field. A
radiologist cancels outpatients. A man cooks a
lone steak on a barbeque. Someone pays ten
euro for a tape of other voices to
harmonise with. A sculptor chips away at a stone horse. A
teacher praises her
student’s meticulousness. Children look blankly at their grandparents’
faces.