gold top

Well, here I am: 365 days old.

I wonder how old I'll be in blipdays if I ever get the opportunity to photograph things like my child's 1st day of life or my retirement bash or the eternity ring I'll eventually buy for Lady Sp33d or the street party we avoided in celebration of the coronation of King William or Wales winning the Rugby World Cup (I can but dream) or a roadtrip snapshot taken on the back of my first Harley. Or the emotions I'll write about on the day I have to go to the funeral of one of my bestbuddyboyos or on the day one of my parents falls ill. Or what witty retort I may attempt to waffle about to accompany yet another humdrum photo of life. Such things would be slightly easier to estimate if I continued blipping every day but now that I've reached my coveted Gold marker I've decided not to anymore. Not that I'm jumping on any blipbreakbandwagons - it was something I decided over 6 months ago. Since then I've tried not to post my weekend blips until 'catchup monday', I've put a limit on the amount of time I spend commenting, I've turned off my ratings bar (because I felt I was becoming a tad obsessed with it) and reduced the amount of time spent absorbed with my bliplife in general (which is in no way indicative of a lack of interest but more a case of me trying to re-address my bliplife-to-reallife ratio).

Lady Sp33d deserves a medal too - for putting up with me ignoring her for evenings on end, for making her late in the mornings whilst I 'just take another shot', for being late home because 'I saw this amazing sky', for me not going to bed with her but staying up because I needed to get that shot in before 12 and for me spending a small fortune on a camera instead of some much-needed furniture for our home. But she also knows how happy I've been since photography re-entered my life, which is all down to Blip. Thanks Joe - you're a star for creating such a fantastic thing. I hope you and your blipteam get the just-rewards they deserve when Blip matures into something that's actually profitable for you.

As for YOU LOT - it's because of you that blip is such a wonderful place. The encouragement and sincerity being thrown around here is a pretty unique thing and something I've treasured from day one, back in the early days when the likes of Barker, G, Jens, Wingpig, SeaUrchin, Treegonk and Red welcomed me on board. It's something I've tried to do to newcomers ever since (and with no ulterior motives to gaining more subscribers either).

So that's it. I've got a gold badge - but what next? Well, apart from the coveted blipcards (which should arrive any day soon GET IN) I'm taking a little blipbreak for a bit, to spend some quality time with my lady and to drench myself in a spot of self-indulgent creativity.

Have a great couple of weeks everyone :-)

(p.s. Check out that - something still very new and self-indulgently creative from my pal and ex-blipper DirtMonkey. I happen to think it's prettynifty...)