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I came here not expecting much. I brought Ziquinho and 15 rolls of colour film which - while that may be a lifetime’s supply for some – is only two days of mediocre wandering. I reckoned that the day of arrival would be a bust as would the day of departure. It seems that even my diminished expectations were too high for this trip.

Part of it is my fault, I was going to use this trip as an experiment in with colour but – as usual didn’t follow the rules that has worked so well for me in the past – don’t bring a safe option. I brought Joãozão and 15 rolls of black and white. It was this camera that was on my lap as we wandered through Cambridge heading for whatever Bostonians call suburbs. I made all these images that could have been part of the project if only I hadn’t played it safe.

In truth I don’t know how they will turn out as it seems that even though it was in the 60’s everyone was cold and they had child proofed the windows so that they wouldn’t open. I reckon that I could Todd Hido it.

To-day went to a rustic little bakery – Panera – to buy bagels and bread. Light drizzle but what I remember as New England colours muted, toward the darker end of the end of the spectrum.

Strange sign of the day “30 minute parking Police take notice.”

There was a potential snap where we stopped – somewhere between the Ace Hardware, the CVS pharmacy, a gas bar and the intersection of two main roads - but wasn’t lucid enough at the time to recognise it.

I wanted a New York Times but had resigned myself to reading it on line.

I needed coffee I had been up for 45 minutes and still no caffeine.

On the way back he put on a hip hop cd, nothing sadder than two late middle aged men listening to hip hop in a Honda Civic especially when one thinks that the Civic is a European performance machine and the roads in Northern Massachusetts are along the French Riviera. I was trying to concentrate on the scenery trying to get my bearings as one of the nice things about New England is that I can get lost. The curves of the roads require that I concentrate if I am ever to find my way back to a potential snap.

This is chalk up to too much time in the Midwest where all the parallel roads make one lazy. I don’t have to pay attention for a road going south always goes south so one only need to pay attention to the turns. After knowing the initial direction one was headed.

Here there is no assumption like that. I have to remember curves, position myself in relation to the sun – nonexistent so far. Even so I find that I am constantly fooled.

I realise why I haven’t got my coffee, all cups are made individually via an espresso machine, in which the beans are weighed out on a scales similar to the one used to weigh out chemistry for Maxim Muir’s Blue Black Developer. When he is finished I get a cup - Larger than a cafèzinho smaller than a decent cup. I down it and ask for another. Then another. Then I wait until he asks if I want another. Yes.

They area astounded thinking that I am going to climb the walls when so far I have had maybe one decent cup and the caffeine would come faster in an I.V drip.

The downpour starts so does the cabin fever, I start to pace. I find a room where I am as close to outdoors as possible – an anteroom which in most houses would be a mud room or a back kitchen if it were in the rear of the house, windows on all sides. I bring down the laptop and try to read the times on line. Cannot. Work on the website, then the slide’s –well Keynote presentation for Wednesday’s class then start to rant and pace.

The cabin fever is aided by the fact that whenever someone comes to a window they remark on the rain and how good it is to be indoors – think that we could be “indoors” in a motorcar where I could get a decent coffee.

Meanwhile in the rest of the house one has been preparing for a dinner party at six. They started at 10AM.

The good news, the rain stops. The bad it is 3PM and heavily overcast, the light will disappear by 4:30. I pack Ziquinho and seven rolls of film – talk about rampant optimism – and head out.

IT is warm out. too warm for the sweatshirt and scarf but I guess that I look suitably New England. The walk has potential as I find a giant tarred over circle with a basketball hoop in it. I work with the fact that houses seem to be lurking beyond property lines and in the trees, not so that they are really obvious but that you know that they are there.

Photograph things New England – the empty Busch Beer quarts in the verge by the fitted stone fences the steps leaning against trees. The abandoned houses. The placard announcing nothing.

The area is not suited for walking as the roads are barely wide enough for two cars much less someone too poor to own one. Saw only two others out and about, one was running the other seemed to have been forced by his dog. Saw a lot of cars though. Either I was desperate or there was a lot to be seen as I went through three rolls of film.

Walked until it was dark then turned around for round two of cabin fever. Mentioned that I found a path. A debate ensued on whether I would contract Lime disease or a poison ivy rash first. The dinner party had the computer crowd and the political whining bunch.

I drank.