Daylight is reviving. A good varnish to the day can make even the worst news glow with depth and promise, whilst a damp canopy can turn a skip of excitement into a wallow waist deep in a puddle.

Fortunately today is the former: beginning with a painting session that made progress unevenly, but ultimately did more good than harm; then was spiked with a twist of disappointment that was sharp and acrid, but washed down with a coffee that built up my resolve to try again. It strikes me that the warm glare of the sun has helped dissolve the taste quicker than might have been the case otherwise. (You may have noticed that I have managed to get some sleep since my last post.)

I look out at the flickering houses that move from light to shade with the train's rhythm, using the shadows and highlight to create depth lines and geometry that overlay the structures of everyday life, and give the patterns of Mondrian to the terraces of the 30s and 50s. I see the aspirations of the social realist and the modernist alike awakening under the piecing glare of the day's sun.

Now shapes reveal themselves against the landscape, structures stand out and of their setting, crevices contrast with reliefs and the real reveals an imaginary in our understanding of the world. Perspective gives us the essence of the buildings and streets - standing prouder and more defiant, shoulders squared and chins raised; yet it also brings another dimension that perhaps they too are unaware of; formed from the shadows of street lamps, washing lines and satellite dishes, then tied together with the reflections of power lines and fences - this is a world of pattern and potential - the imagination buried in our back pockets.

The sun sees the world with a 'magic eye' revealing hidden images if you squint and turn your head just so. I don't know whether to see signs of a higher cause, or to indulge in oxymoron and prove the workings of a totalizing ideology in this; so I settle for the wry smile of a private joke that is between me and the sun - where different ages and philosophies are juxtaposed to allow my imagination to be refreshed, and my spirits to rise again.