The other day something sad happened. I know this is meant to be precise recording of my daily activities but it has taken me a couple of days to process what I really wanted to say. For those of you who have been following this little adventure will remember that in February I mentioned that there was this little stray cat that made it's way into the factory complex I am in. He/She was rather sickly when we first met. I decided to take on the task of occasionally giving it some food whenever I saw it. Over the weeks that passed Bella decided that the best name to give it was Dom. It came from a number of conversations where I would often be a little despondent about the fact that I was spending sometimes my last bit of coin to buy food for the cat, and it would eat it and walk off. I would often feel a little rejected that the cat didn't stick around, even though I made, by this point, a really active decision to feed it the best I could. The name came from the Michael Jackson's track "D.S." The lyric "Dom Sheldon is a cold man" was kinda fitting to my feelings with the cat, that I would be the one that would feed it, yet also be the one that would have to watch it run away. The shot above is the two little white plates I served food on, one was meat, one was dry food. The plastic container was half for milk and the other half for water. Over the period of this 365 there were a few shoots that I did out side and it was like the cat was a photographer in a past life… it would in the early days perch itself out of the back of one of the many trucks around here… just observing. I would look back and see this little head fixed on every thing I was doing. As time went on and I was going through a rather rough patch and couldn't see the beauty in any thing, I remember one of the shots I was not getting the right light, I was getting frustrated… and when I get frustrated I kinda like to curse. I look over and see Dom, and there it was… sitting in the perfect sunlight to take the shot. Like always I would thank the cat, and it would do it's thing by running away. It was like that. It was never touched by a human and just didn't know what to think of this 6"2" idiot gawking over it. As time passed and I would sit outside drawing sketches it would come and sit around me. Just staring at me. It would always stay it's mandatory 3 feet away… But, I would talk to it and ask it questions. It must of thought I was a nutter. Anyways, as time passed and I fed it and it kept me company in the only way it knew. It began to teach me something. It taught me that our expectations on how another person should return love, was just that, our own perceptions. We are brought up by what ever means and along the way it is often ingrained that a certain "quid pro quo" deal comes with any relationship. You do something, you have an expectation based on your perception of what you should receive in return. When it fails, then you question why you continue with your deliverance actions, if your receiving expectations are not met. Can I just say, that this is something I am learning to change in myself. Because what we expect to get out of a relationship, can often be the demise of actually learning anything from the relationship. I see a lot of people expecting quotas to be met, or they walk. They have a glass and if it is not filled in the ways they like it, then they move on to someone or something that does make them feel that sense of completeness. I learnt from my relationship from Dom, that if I was to do that and expect him to turn around and say "Ok dude, you are feeding me, I am now yours. You can call me your cat, we can pat a couple of times in the day, and then we can go about our daily lives… you know what… lets have a formulated routine… sound good?" You know what? No it doesn't. How are you expected to see a person shine, a person grow, a person evolve if your preconceived expectations are placed on them? Isn't it better to see them be themselves and you find the beauty in the structure that is the fact that you have a bond? That you might get along in one way, and that allowing them to be themselves, helps you grow. You see them shoot across the sky and you can say… you know what? I know that person, and I respect them to the utmost degree? Society and what programs it doesn't teach you that. It is more of a "get what you need, or move on" sort of approach. Well, little mate Dom, you have successfully taught me the other. I may of never got to fall asleep whilst watching a movie and have you purring at the end of the bed. But, your little trends and idiosyncrasies really made me happy. When you would see the car pull in… you would lift your head, look over and give me a look that would say "I will be over when I have finished soaking in this direct sunlight". That to me is respect. That to me is understanding. It is not an easy start, but by God, it p

Only mildly bewildering. Somehow managed not to notice the one-way sign in the middle of the facade of the hotel. The shot was taken through the [new] curved glass window of a new flower shop, and into Queen Street round the corner. The buildings involved: *The King's Arms Royal Hotel - the big pub which takes up most of the picture. Nice custard. *The Sun - the red building with the white strip, down in the lower left. Nasty pub. *The estate agents and some hairdresser's in Queen Street (hence the reference to lesbianism). Never been in either. *The garden/flower shop. In the Dutch-gabled building which used to be an inept newsagents. One of those trendy, niche [overpriced] places which appear regularly round here. They also disappear fairly regularly. There's another new flower shop down the road, next to... I can't remember what it is at the moment. They usually go the way of that "designer" shop which used to be where Trimwell's [a haberdashery] was, and which is now the photography shop. The owner came, ruthlessly modernised, and sat waiting for the occasional person who'd only come to see whether they really sold 4 plastic coasters for ?35 to actually buy something. Not that I'm at all pessimistic, but there are a heck of a lot of shop owners who spend their days sitting, reading a book (or worse, Heat), waiting for someone to come in.