28 May 09 PM

I'm not here, not really. In my mind I am thousands of miles away, walking down another street washed with the same sunlight. I can still hear the heavy hum of the city in the background, reverberating around the unusually deserted street. I can still picture the cool blue of the sky, and the trees beginning to reclothe their naked branches. This prose is terrible, but suffice to say I'm on my own at rush hour. It's not so far away in time or even distance really, but I wonder if it'll ever be possible to go back.

28 May 09 AM

I love living amongst artists. Every day I step out of my front door and someone's changed my perspective. I feel like things are happening here, and I'm being part of it just by clinging onto the coat tails as it rushes by...

27 May 09 PM

Today I have counted toilets, caught an overheated bus and broken my shoe. I need a beer. So despite my back crying out for someone to press their whole weight against it - in more ways than one - I have walked out of my way to get cheap beer from Tesco. The girl at the till seems surprised that I don't carry ID, despite it being legal for me to drink in this country for over a decade.
- No ID at all?
- No, my driving licence is on paper, in a filing cabinet in Gloucestershire. And it doesn't have a photo. And I've had my bag nicked enough times in London to not carry my passport.
- Well I'm afraid I can't serve you.
- But I'm 28!
- Well I'll tell you now you don't look a day over 20.
- That's kind of a moot point, isn't it? Given that you only need to be 18 to drink in this country?
- If you look under 25 you need to be able to show proof of age.
- But I don't look under 25. I'm a fully qualified architect, though, and I've got the business cards to prove it...
- You could have got those printed yourself.
- They're double sided, full colour, satin finish. Do you know how much that costs? Probably more than a fake driving licence, that's for sure.
- Well I'm afraid we can't accept that anyway. Those could be anyone's.
- Even if they're the same name as the one on the card I'm paying with?
- Yes.
- So you're accusing me of card fraud as well as trying to obtain alcohol under the legal drinking age...?

*huff*

Now I'm tired, red faced, frustrated and sober. And my back still hurts.

27 May 09 AM

There is a girl on the bus. She is about 7 or 8 years old. She's with her Dad, who seems a levelheaded kinda soul. Her name in Amelie. I can't help but think what an overbearing ass her mother must be.

26 May 09 PM

It is hot. Early evening sunshine - actual sunshine, rather than glow - beats down on High Holborn. There is joyous chatter floating out from open pub doorways, even this close to payday. The girl in front of me is wearing a the kind of lightweight floral dress I can never find in the shops, and is flip-flopping her way nonchalantly along the street. Yet I am wearing a leather jacket and carrying an umbrella. This is how you spot people who work during the day.

Good looking young gentlemen are making eye contact with me. Is there something on my face? Is it the jacket?

26 May 09 AM

It's raining, just to reinforce the tedium of the end of the long Bank Holiday's freedom. It's the kind of rain that makes me wonder why I'm carrying an umbrella, as it dances up to defy gravity and gently dowse my face and freshly ironed hair. In fact, it makes me I wonder why I'm wearing makeup, or indeed if I still am. Judging from the glances of some of my parallel commuters, it appears that it's certainly not all where I put it only minutes ago.

The air is still weighted down with the warmth of the weekend sun, but the rain brings a cold edge. It reminds me of late evenings in the summer playing in the sprinkler on the lawn, the soft grass and scorched earth under bare toes radiating back the heat of a long summer's day, whilst the icy cold water spatters against skin. But it's too early to give in to the calls of dinner and sleep and the prospect of another week at school just yet. Even if it is nearly dark and the shadows appear to shift ominously, now indiscernible from the trees from under which they creep...

Once upon a time...

I walked my dog every day around the lakes behind our house in the Shire, and in doing so I watched the subtleties of the seasons passing. Using the familiar landscape as my yard stick, I was able to watch the slow shift from heavily warm summer mornings to the cool, creeping crisp dusk of the winter. I always thought that I should take a photograph every day, but I never did. So this is my penance. A journey from Shoreditch to Holborn - and back - every working day.