journal

spent four hours at the kitchen table with a past paper and got through one question. quadratics again. mr okafor says i'll be fine if i just "show my working" but my working is three crossed-out attempts and a doodle of the canal.

mum brought tea twice. i drank neither. they went cold next to the highlighters. revision is mostly moving the same pen around the page until it's dark out.

shot half a roll out the window between questions. grey sky, the bins, the neighbour's cat that hates me. probably the best thing i made all day.

found three rolls of fuji C200 in the charity shop on kingsland road, in a biscuit tin behind the dvds. £2 the lot. expired 2019. the woman at the till said "no idea if it works, love" which is exactly the energy i'm after.

expired film is a gamble and that's the whole point. the greens go strange, the shadows turn this bruised blue, and you don't know until you get it back. it's like the camera adds its own opinion.

loaded one straight away in the shop doorway. couldn't wait.

liam dropped his phone in the regent's canal. not near the edge. fully in. he was doing a bit, leaning over to film a swan, and physics did the rest. the swan was unbothered. liam was not.

we watched it sink for a second like an idiot then he just said "well" and that was that. i had the camera up before i'd even processed it, so somewhere on this roll there's a frame of him crouched on the towpath staring into the water like it owed him money.

got him a hot chocolate after. he's fine. the phone is now a fish problem.

columbia road on a sunday is too many people and too many flowers and i love it. bought a matcha for five pounds forty which is criminal and i'd do it again. kept the receipt. it's going in a collage with the bus ticket and a torn bit of the flower stall's price list.

didn't buy any flowers. just took photos of other people's. there was an old man with an entire armful of tulips and he let me take his picture and didn't even ask why.

the matcha was fine. the light was unreal.