My alarm went off at 6:00 this morning, and as I reached for my phone, fumbling to turn off the perky jingle, it took a moment for me to remember what was going on. I'd barely slept two consecutive hours, waking with a racing heart, checking the time, convinced I'd missed my wake-up call, glancing outside to check the colour of the sky. Give me a task and chances are I will find a way to worry about it; I turned the light back on at one point during the night to explore some of the manual functions on my Canon G11, certain that a little extra insight would make all the difference.

My sweet friend Katrina had invited me to participate in The Wanderer Project and I was excited to try my hand at some photography a little outside of my comfort zone. I was not, however, exactly prepared for the tiny blizzard and total lack of colour that faced me as I stood at the edge of the pond, waiting for the sunrise of my imaginings to burn through the thick, grey sky.

Above are a few out-takes, of sorts, snatched quickly freehand with a different camera, once I'd given into the cold and tucked my tripod and pre-set G11 back into my rucksack. They are probably my favourites from the short forty minutes or so that we were outside, but isn't that always the way? We make notes, we plan, we pack our bag full of plastic in which to swaddle the camera, in theory protecting it against the elements; it gets wet anyway, the settings go awry, the umbrella comes down and we start towards home, snow-bitten hands still playing with the dials.

**

'I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again."' --Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll