Blue air, white ground

I get the train from Braintree Freeport Station every morning.

Because of ice and snow on the stairs which lead down to the platform, they've been cordoned off using the highly professional method of tying some tape to some cones and leaving them at either end.

The snow has once again turned the air blue. It's also turned everything strangely beautiful again -- solid and ethereal simultaneously.

I was walking home as it was snowing, the night before I took this photo. It was outrageously cold, the snow was coming down almost horizontally, and by the time I made it home my face was raw from the wind and wet.

I ate an apple in that blizzard, and I don't know if it was because of the snow, but that apple was probably one of the best I've ever eaten -- and I've eaten a lot of apples.

I was walking to work, so it would have been about 7:28am when I took this.

Woodland Trolley

I walk along the alley between Stubbs Lane and Millenium Way every day.

During the summer I found this trolley dumped in the entrance to a small wooded area that runs alongside the alley.

At first it looked to me like it had been placed there as some kind of magical bung, stopping any nature seeping out from the tiny wood into the alley. That idea fit quite well with the 'Trolleys As Instruments of Ritual' hypothesis I was running with the time (and by no means have abandoned).

But now it looks more like it was abandoned during an aborted shopping trip into the wood. That someone would attempt to get the trolley up that bumpy incline and them wheel it amongst the shrubs and gorse and trees seems oddly rational to me.

I was walking home, which would normally mean it would be about 18:30 that I took this, but according to the image's metadata it was 17:29, so I must have come home early that day.

Car Park Feeling

I walk through the Braintree Freeport Carpark every day.

The day before this picture was taken was the day that the winner of an art prize I was in the running for was due to be announced. I checked my email and the prize's website every 15 mins to from 9am until 11pm to see if I'd won, but didn't hear anything.

That night, I had a dream in which one of the other nominees one the prize, and I woke up with a feeling of disappointment that I tried to shake by telling myself it was just a dream. I checked my email while I ate my toast and there was no word from the organisers. I checked the website while I drank my coffee and found that I had, in fact, become a runner up. Someone else had won.

My walk to work was desolate. I had already spent the prize money in my mind, and I desperately needed the recognition that the prize would have afforded me. When I came to the car park, half-full of the cars of faceless commuters, I felt it said something about my mood, and took this picture.

On the train, I fell asleep. I dreamt that I became a volunteer in the police force in order to win the chance to go on a date with Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine, and won. My date with Florence involved catching the train back to Braintree Freeport (where I'd got on the train in waking life), and she had brought three male friends, one of whom was wearing bottle-top spectacles, another who was chubby with a shaved head. She was much shorter in my dream than I imagine she is in real life, as in real life she appears to be about 7' tall, and she was normal size in my dream. Her voice was reedy, thin and annoying, and she was far too theatrical in conversation for my taste. I didn't particualry enjoy her company, although I identified with something desperate and sad in her male companions.

When I woke up at Liverpool Street, I felt amazing, and totally over the fact I'd missed out on the art competition, although I couldn't work out why.

I was walking to work, so it would have been about 7:25am when I took this.