Heading into the Sun

I've just returned from setting up a TV programme in Holland. It has been three days of almost unremitting tedium, the sort of days that start at about eight in the morning and seem to end about a week later. They have only been enlivened by flashes of wit, cameraderie and the occasional piece of lighting that I'm almost pleased with.

I think I've got a high threshold of boredom. Without it I wouldn't survive in my job; it's not all glamour, parties and fine living at the viewers expense. Often there's a lot of hanging about. Actually I'll reword that. There's always a lot of hanging about.

When it comes to setting up a venue, lighting is the first thing to go in. The sparks and I then have to wait while everything else is built, rigged, aligned and generally fettled into shape. Finally we go back in before the show kicks off to set the lamps for whatever function I've assigned to them. Consequently I'm usually to be found still on the set at the last minute with the stage manager breathing very closely down my neck - we have an interesting relationship in which I have the upper hand; it's difficult to televise something if it's having to take place in the dark.

This job had plenty of tiresomeness but it was also next to a railway station, a chink of light in an otherwise stultifying experience. I took myself off there during a break from hanging around. Low sun straight down the lens and the 18.58 to Rotterdam Central poised to gallop off into the sunset.

Back home, a strange moon, with a halo. First frost of the autumn?