Today could have been a very different day if it happened a week ago...

I wasn't going to head for the Severn Valley today. It didn't feel like the right thing to do from the very outset of the morning. A frantic dash around the house to create enough time to make a phonecall. This began to define the pattern of the day, which from that point stopped being about inland waterways and extended to oceans. The usual dash up, changing at Bristol and heading onto 1M21. Then, in the absence of a backup-plan, into the coffee shop. Then over to the yard of St.Chad's Cathedral. Empty and quiet in autumnal sunshine. The benches wet, a couple of early drinkers stumbling around the grounds. I paced and talked...time passed...the park became busy with commuters heading for retail jobs, then shoppers, then the commuters returned for lunch...

I talked for a long time.

Dizzy and somewhat stumbling I edged around the city. I headed for the water, but the gentrified fringes were too busy. The crowds became busier. I found myself briefly at Moor Street station having scooted around Selfridges silver, bubbled flank. I'd not been this close before and was amazed by its strangely organic feel. The bridges delving deep into it at odd angles cut the strange soft edges. I was fascinated and took a shot, struggling to avoid the glare and needing to wait for a passing bus to get it quite right.

Eventually, I sought solace in the mall above the station and settled to write. I managed to express what I'd hoped and sent it winging across the Atlantic again. I wondered what would happen next. I could only look to more coffee, a journey, music and the rest of the evening...

This was not the day I expected to report on, nor the day I expected to experience. But it was an important day nonetheless.