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In a small seaside town, autumn is edging into winter, gulls ride winds over the waves, and two women, strangers, pass each other on the promenade, as yet unaware of each other''s existence. One hit wonder Lydia Lincoln has fled the city for the coast, after a self-serving apology from a famous abusive ex-lover throws her whole sense of identity into flux. Uncomprehending, and angry, Lydia is trying to believe her future is alive with possibilities, even as her ex-bandmate and best friend Pandora drags her deeper into obsessively reassessing the past. Meanwhile for Joyce, life has stood still. Dressed identically to her mother Betty, Joyce moves in lock step with Betty''s unerring daily routines, playing out a claustrophobic co-dependency in their house of dolls. Their twin beds idle under matching flouncy satin counterpanes; but after lights out, middle-aged Joyce nurses teenage dreams of romance and escape, caught between a past she doesn''t understand and a future she can''t imagine. Although they don''t know it yet, these women are on a collision course and, in the coming hours and days, they will confront each other - and their own predicaments - head-on. Set against the bleak beauty of the British seaside - fish and chips and beauty parlours; bird hides, amusement arcades and bags of candyfloss - Birding takes the temperature of the female nation. A story about contemporary middle-age, about duty, consent, contrition and complicity; about the difference between love and obligation, and the boundary between unhealthy relationships and abusive ones, Birding asks what it might take for a woman with clipped wings to finally take flight.
