After spending a long time studying a map I had decided I wanted to go slightly further afield today, so I went by bike. The trouble was though that everything passed by rather too quickly to be of any genuine use. Just here was pretty much the first time I stopped (to look at the map), and so in a sense it forms the real beginning of today's journey.

I chose to turn left, in case you were wondering.

So this is looking in the direction of the way I didn't go. Strange decision, that, as it looks quite promising. However the map had told me to go the other way, and for now at least I was content to follow cartographic logic.

Yesterday I had been away in the city, partly for practical reasons, but perhaps also to try to regain some sense of attachment to the world of human beings. The impact of being away from here and then coming back was noticeable, as I'd hoped. Everything seemed the same, but more so, somehow. Perhaps feeling the tension between city and country (or man-made world and natural world) a little more acutely than before, I found myself drawn to a camping site. Some of the caravans here seemed to articulate something about this dichotomy.

Those had been mildly interesting thoughts, and maybe even ones worth pursuing sometime, somehow; but this, I felt, was closer to what I was looking for. Or at least it was closer to what I had already found myself looking at. Which was as near as I could get to knowing what it was I was looking for, at this stage.

The ground here was extremely boggy, so I decided to abandon my bike for a while.

Slowly but surely the sense of vague disinterest that had been plaguing me for the last week or so began to lift. The way I was seeing things here, the way I was feeling them, was starting, I sensed, to regain a forgotten urgency.

Certainly the urge to make images had returned. And that was at least a start.

The ground here was extremely uneven, and not at all as solid as it appeared to be. Venturing forth into the bog, I began to feel at home; I felt a connection between myself and where I was, a connection that had until now only seldom presented itself in such an acute way. At one point I reflected that this might simply be due to the new pair of boots I was wearing (which I'd bought the day before). Certainly there was something deeply satisfying about trudging through the swampy ground with the aid of such sturdy footwear. Had my "connection" with the landscape then simply been due to a purchase in the shoe section of a department store? Partly perhaps, but somehow I felt - I allowed myself to feel - that I had taken a step towards something a bit more genuine today.

Here would probably be a good place to do something, I had also thought, in the midst of all this other reflection.

Feeling extremely positive now, I returned to my bike and set off. A little later I came across a stretch of road which also seemed important. It was relatively short, very straight, surrounded by fields and a small patch of forest - in many ways unremarkable, but it did seem to have a particular quality which set it apart from other stretches of road. It was only when I reached the end of it that I seemed to become aware of this, and so I made a photograph looking back the way I'd come. There seemed to have been a realisation along the way that a particular significant moment had occurred. An instant when it all fell into place - what I could see, what I could hear, what I could feel, what I could smell - everything seemed to be unusually present and meaningful. I have no documentation of this moment however, so I could well be making it all up. I only have a picture of the road. And a recollection to go with it of something that may or may not have actually happened.