Something has happened to my brain since I started working here. I can't walk anywhere without noticing things that aren't being used. It started as a habit and has become a slightly embarrassing hobby. My friends have learnt not to walk with me past an empty car park unless they want a five-minute monologue about it.
So here's a week of it.
Sunday, the car park
A supermarket car park, enormous, completely empty apart from one shopping trolley that seems to have given up. Two hundred spaces of flat, safe, well-lit tarmac, and nobody needs it until Monday. Meanwhile, somewhere across town, a market trader is paying for a pitch, a driving instructor is teaching three-point turns on a busy road, and a food truck owner is hunting for somewhere to park on a Saturday night.
Monday, the kitchen
A restaurant I walk past every morning. Through the window at nine o'clock: chairs on tables, lights off, steel counters gleaming at nobody. Fully equipped, fully licensed and fully asleep until four. I happen to know someone who bakes the best sourdough I've ever eaten, in a flat with an oven the size of a shoebox.
Tuesday, the van
A row of work vans parked up at the end of the day, logos on the side, keys in someone's pocket until seven tomorrow. That same evening, a friend paid for a rental van to move one wedding cake.
Wednesday, the meeting room
An office with a glass-walled meeting room. Big table, good chairs, a little screen by the door that says Available. It said Available at two. It said Available at five. I'm starting to suspect it always says Available. Two streets away, a small team I know holds its weekly meeting in a café, shouting over the coffee machine.
Thursday, the billboard
"Your ad here," with a phone number. I've walked past it for months. I don't think the problem is the billboard. I think the people who'd do something brilliant with it, an artist, a local charity, a band with a new record, simply aren't the people who ring numbers on billboards.
Friday, the school
It's not summer anymore, but I keep thinking about the one near me in August. Classrooms, a hall, a kitchen, a sports field, behind a gate with a chain on it for ten weeks. I genuinely don't know who decides what happens to a school in the holidays. I'd love to meet them.
Saturday, the shop window
A vacant storefront on a busy street, a To Let sign that's started to fade. Hundreds of people walk past every hour and the window shows them dust. A pop-up, a gallery, a book swap, a repair café... honestly, anything would be an upgrade.
Here's the thing I keep coming back to. None of the owners of these places are doing anything wrong. The car park belongs to a supermarket that only needs it six days a week. The kitchen belongs to a restaurant that opens in the evening. The gap isn't laziness. It's that the person who needs the thing and the person who has it have no way of finding each other.
That gap is the reason CoSell exists. Not to make anyone sell anything, just to let the two halves meet.
I'll probably keep giving monologues about car parks. I've accepted it.
But I do wonder what's sitting idle in your week that you've stopped seeing. The spare room, the van, the tools in the shed, the audience you haven't written to in a year.
What did you walk past today?