Contrasts

I have been up writing at 5.30am for most of this week, in order to squeeze some writing time into our busy days. The Liverpool Light collaboration with Alan McKernan is looking good; his strong dark images and my doubting - doubtful - and unsettled texts. We are self-publishing and so there are no barriers to free expression, and I have allowed my understanding of the urban landscape and its stories free rein. I especially like the idea of tracing my old journeys across the city in my head and on paper, a virtual flaneur, watching myself as a teenager getting off the bus and walking across to the Central Library and the layer upon layer of history - my history and the city's histories -I cross. And I look up from these nostalgic anxious journeys and I see the sunlight on Shobdon hill, or the mist lying across the valley being dispersed by the early sun, and sometimes I cannot understand why I cannot see the city.