My blog has been shortlisted for the Manchester Blog Awards in the Best New Blog category. If you like the things I post you could vote for me, not by ringing the number on the feather above (that's another story), but by visiting this site and clicking next to Gathering Scraps.
I found the feather last week on a pavement in Chorley town centre. I often stop to pick up feathers. It's a bit of an obsession. My story in the just-launched Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories about Birds has drawers full of feathers in it. I could see from a distance that this feather had something written on it. When I stooped to pick it up, I was conscious that a man who was smoking in a pub doorway was watching me, so I quickly tucked it into my bag and saved pulling it out again till I got home, half-running with excitement (and I never run). I haven't rung the number. I'm a wimp. Also, part of me would rather imagine fantastic possibilities than be given mundane answers. But I've tried and I can't work out a mundane reason for printing a phone number on a feather (unless it's a new form of advertising that's passed me by). I did give in to temptation in the end and searched for it on google. I found it belonged to a Liverpool ventilation firm called Direct Preservation Services (this is the cached page because in the last few days they've changed their number). That just intrigued me more.