Acre Lane, 17th May 2008

This mismatched pair had become corralled at the apex of the traffic island's railings. Such an enclosure looked protective, but when I walked past again 20 minutes later, they had both disappeared.

Pembridge Road, 29th April 2008

I love this, as it's the first one I've ever seen being lost. Two Notting Hill mothers wandered along the pavement, each wheeling a toddler clutching a balloon. As I watched, one child let his slip, and it was up and gone before he or his mother could react. Indeed as my hand shot to my pocket for my camera, I assumed that I'd have to scurry down the street and stand right next to the mewling infant, phone aloft, as I gleefully snapped the cause of his misery before it shrank into the distance. But happily not. Not only was the infant utterly nonplussed (and his mother doubtless relieved by the fact), but a fresh-leaved tree had snagged the very end of the balloon's ribbon, leaving it bobbing patiently against a grey sky.

So I snapped guiltlessly and unnoticed as the mothers moved on, their incident likely quickly forgotten over cappuccino and chat, never to know the tiny thrill it gave the man they just walked past.

On my homeward commute the balloon had gone.

A217, around Cheam, 27th April 2008

A pale balloon on a grey day. Rare to be in a car, but the Sunday traffic slowed us to the extent that I could hurriedly fumble for my phone.

Brixton Road, from 35 bus, 6th April 2008

This free turquoise bounced further in 30 seconds than the bus moved in ten minutes. A fire in Brixton had closed the main road, sending the buses a tortuous route round various one way systems accompanied by countless confused cars. The closure contributed to its longevity; it skipped unhassled up the normally hectic road and under the police tape, continuing its journey towards the flashing lights and gushing smoke free from traffic and crowds.

Camberwell Road, from 35 bus, 29th March 2008

A second tree-snagged cluster almost exactly a week after the last. What they were celebrating before their escape is less obvious this time, though.

Tooley Street, from 47 bus, 22nd March 2008

An enormous cluster of St Patrick's Day survivors ensnared by a bare tree, and snapped from a speeding bus on a cold grey day. Given the profusion of green, white and orange balloons that had festooned pub fronts all week it was perhaps not surprising to see a few escapes, and the sheer number in this trapped group is indicative of the decorative excess in general.

Clapham Common, Long Road, from 37 bus, 9th March 2008

A group of three suspended in low branches. So low, in fact, that it implies their owner lost them elsewhere and they blew to this resting place from afar, rather than the more usual vertical escape from a careless hand.

St John's Road, from 37 bus, 16th February 2008

And about ten minutes later, a second pink escape. Its colour and heart shape make it even more obvious that this was a Valentine's reject. To see two in ten minutes is rare - maybe Clapham is a particular hotspot of dashed romance.

I was actually on the phone when I saw this, but couldn't resist taking it, so slipped back the lens cover and took the shot anyway, mid-conversation. That action didn't hang up as I imagined it would, but as I expected it to and thus stopped talking, my friend hung up after a few "hello?"s to the background bus noise. I rang back having taken it. As she, like most, has no idea about all this, I brushed the moment aside as an obscure technical glitch with the phone.

Clapham Common, from 37 bus, 16th February 2008

Blurred by haste as the bus pulled away. Perhaps this pastel pink one was formerly part of a Valentine's Day gift - if so the fact that it was two days later rolling unattended on a small urban lawn does not imply good things about the relationship it was bought to celebrate.

Burlington Gardens, 13th February 2008

Spotted while leaving Secret Cinema at the On/Off thing, which that night was festooned with balloons and dancing and costumes. Given the performance it was hardly surprising to see a ribboned and pastel escape on our exit, but on the way in, as the event name implies, we had no idea what we were about to see. It turned out to be "Funny Face", a film of such anachronistic naivety that it felt like an Attenborough-esque study of the lives of another species. S'unpredictable, this life...

Brighton beach, 10th February 2008

Out of all the balloons I've caught over the last 2.5 years plus, this is my favourite so far, and I think I'll do well to beat it. The sunset was incredible, neon red silhouetting the gutted pier, the wheeling starlings just visible at left, the lazy viscous waves... a snapshot scarcely does the scene justice. The balloon, green although the camera doesn't betray that in this light, was ripped furiously from left to right by the wind and waves, so much so that a minute before I was about to leap down from the concrete groyne to the beach to attempt to snap it in the surf. I'm glad I didn't. It shot past the end of my perch so quickly I had only a few seconds to capture it before it was lost against the darkening waters.

It is doomed, as are all the others, but what a final journey.

Kennington Road, from 159 bus, 12th January 2008

A pink pair tied together and surviving at a bus stop, the first sighting(s) of the new year. This was a shot against the clock, hastily fumbling to reach my phone before the bus pulled away. They were captured just in time - the shutter clicked as the bus growled back into action, and if the photo hadn't have come out they would have been missed. It hasn't escaped my notice that it's actually a better photo than some of the ones I've been able to compose and shoot unpressured by time (such as Bedford Road below). Bah...

Bedford Road, 27th December 2007

Rolling around with its stalk the radius of the arcs. I was venturing into town for a bit of post-Christmas shopping... needless to say there was no sign of the balloon, or its stalk, when I returned.

James Street, Covent Garden, 22nd December 2007

Only idiocy and procrastination could drive me to central London on the last Saturday before Christmas, and Covent Garden was predictably teeming with shoppers. So prevalent were balloons amongst the other decorations of the season that it was almost a surprise that this was the only escape I saw, trapped in the fairy-lit branches of a tree above the hordes.

Brixton Road, 23rd November 2007

A small and deflated red one that had somehow run the gauntlet of the commuting crowds tramping to the stations. I doubt it lasted until they returned.

Regent Street, from 88 bus, 17th November 2007

As if the balloon-like shapes of the Regent Street Christmas decorations weren't enough, a clutch of genuine balloons had risen from the street to get ensnared by the decoration's support wire, where they hung like a bleak, if multicoloured, parody of the illuminated spheres.

Off Acre Lane, 7th October 2007

Oh my god, the mother lode! Evidently party survivors, I hadn't noticed them but a friend pointed them out after the front garden one below reminded her of the collection. Protected from street and residents (there are no front gardens at these flats) these could last a while. Even if not, these many-coloured escapes made my day, and it would have been a great day anyway.

Glenelg Road, 7th October 2007

In my own front garden. I initially though it was burst, and thus dead rather than doomed, but a quick squeeze revealed that it was in fact still entire, if almost totally deflated.