Thank you all for your lovely comments yesterday (or whatever day it was) - it was smashing to hear from so many of you and it made me realise how much I have been absent recently.

So much so that I might be thinking of trying to resume blipping a bit more regularly. Trouble is I got my nice Nikon bridge camera a bit damp last week and it's dead. My DSLR's 55-300mm zoom lens is also playing up so my camera gear is suffering big time. Have been wondering whether to upgrade - I might be asking for opinions soon.