Glenelg Road, 14th July 2007

Our next door neighbours had covered their garden in balloons, likely for a child's party, and these must have been escapes. The day was punctuated at irregular intervals by their sudden and explosive pops.

From Gabriel's Wharf, 8th July 2007

The South Bank was in party mood, for the cloud-heavy backdrop to this last flight is misleading - it had been a sunny day and a sunny weekend, the first for a while. Plenty of people out, ice cream, children, street artists and many attendant balloons. I think this was a Giraffe one; the cafe/restaurant had some kind of promotion on, and had printed hundreds of orange balloons to give to wide-eyed toddlers. Not all could hold on.

Grand Union Canal, from Grand Union pub, , 4th July 2007

Another coincidence - not twenty minutes after seeing the one below, this one appeared. The coincidences ended there though; no red-garbed cyclist came past to raise eyebrows further.

Grand Union Canal, from Grand Union pub, 4th July 2007

Lovely pub garden, lousy view. This yellow brightened the grey and brick scene on a grey day. The cyclist, adding his own yellow, was a pure coincidence.

Old Home Farm, East Sussex, 1st July 2007

My birthday, although the balloon-festooned party the night before, from which this was an escape, was totally unrelated to that. It made it through the night in the pondside reed beds, but when I returned before leaving it had gone.

Clapham Common, 28th April 2007

It had been a hectic and chaotic day, but a few drinks in the afternoon sun overlooking the Common helped to relax us. We were wandering across the Common to the bus stop to head off in search of food when I spotted this one, a relic of the teeming crowds that had filled the Common until the Sun dipped below the fringing buildings.

Bayswater Road/Hyde Park, 15th April 2007

Hyde Park was absolutely heaving on the hottest day of the year so far, most doing exactly the same as me - drinking with friends on the grass. And on my way in I saw this one trapped in a tree. It clearly had enough helium in it to make it float, but its freedom evidently didn't last long before it was caught in the net of freshly-leaved branches of a large London plane tree.

It was lush in the park, everyone was in high spirits, and this one raised mine even higher than they would have otherwise been. But only a tiny bit.

Henry Dickens Court, St Ann's Road, 12th April 2007

If you believe the papers, London's estates are teeming with feral knife-wielding kids who'd sooner stick a blade in a teenager than buy some chips. How true that is remains debatable, but evidently bursting stray balloons wasn't high on the to-do list of the assorted bike gangs and Staffie owners milling around the streets that evening. Not while I was passing anyway.

New North Road, Reigate, Surrey, 1st April 2007

You have to love coincidences. I tell one other person about this, he looks out of his window the next morning, and guess what?

"If you didn't live in London, I'd suspect foul play"

Grand Union Canal, from Great Western Road, 11th January 2007

And this is the last one I've seen, at the time or writing/uploading, so it's been nearly three months. Now that I've set up this blog I hope my brain will be permanently pre-primed to notice them and that future additions will be more regular than over the last 21 months. I won't post unless I have a new photo.

I never expected it to come to this when I took the first few, or indeed the one above. I was prompted to create this site after reading in the Guardian Guide (31st March 2007) of a site called London Daily Photo. To the author of that site, and especially to his lucid instructions on how to do this, I doff my cap and raise my pint. I don't know this man, but I share his enthusiasm and I am very grateful for his unbidden help.

Shepherds Bush Green, 6th January 2007

A rather sorry example in the gutter on a wet winter day. Night dark at 5ish, when this was taken; the kind of night when summer seems a strange and fanciful concept.

St James's Road, 7th October 2006

I had barely noticed it before I saw the child, who entered rapidly from the right. Whether he was running to pick up a loved one that got away, or to pop one found on the street, I don't know. If the latter he didn't pop it within earshot.

Ladbroke Grove, 13th September 2006

Again, I remember nothing about this one. I only got the location by enlarging the photo and thinking where I'd have been at that time: another walk home from work. Then I recognised it. Looks different with leaves.

St Ann's Road, 5th September 2006

Blurred because I was in motion; the curve of the yellow line makes it look distorted but that's how it's painted. The speedwalking kid in the background adds an element of motion to this that is missing in most, and that I didn't realise I was missing until this.

Tavistock Road/Portobello Road, 28th August 2006

It will survive longer tucked behind an advertising board (I feel sure there's a technical term for those things but I don't know it). I doubt it lasted the night, but it probably outlasted me - a few punches served in the cafe we were sat outside did for me totally.

Oaklands Grove, 19th August 2006

When I uploaded this I'd forgotten where it was taken, but I had a rare moment of clarity a minute ago - it was taken in the street outside my flat, in which I had been for just two days. A cheery welcome back to W12.

Yellow again too - given this, July's one and the one from 2nd August last year, you could almost say that people preferentially pick yellow balloons in high summer. Or that people selectively squash dull-coloured ones when it's bright.

Vanston Place/Walham Grove/North End Road, 29th July 2006

Spotted near home one very hot, bright summer day. Its yellowness was apt - the gunmetal one would have looked incongruously bleak with the Sun blazing so.

From the London Eye, 24th June 2006

This is the only shot I have so far of a wild balloon in flight. As is likely obvious, it's also the only shot taken with my proper camera, rather than the one on my mobile phone. From the Eye's enormous field of view I could follow this one for ages, and watched it from nearly ground level on its journey upwards and eastwards in the hot wind.