Celebrating the sunrise

Today the sun rose on my Blipday when the forecast had been for light drizzle. So I was challenged by my blip adviser to go up to the top of the hill to take my blip for the day - a change from my usual practice of poking the camera out of the attic window to catch a sunrise. The spectacle was greatly helped by the wealth of vapour trails going both east and west which felt as though they were linking me to all the friends that I've made through Blipfoto, both on my doorstep (literally - though we've never met I waved to him as he drove past me yesterday) and as far away as it's possible to get in New Zealand.

So who do I have to thank for my addiction, well first of all there is guiri , who got me hooked. A friend for many years and when she moved to Spain we weren't very good at keeping up with e-mail. Since we've been blipping we are in almost daily contact, which is fantastic. Then I have to thank Erick Pitsker for being the first person to welcome me and also Clickychick who I see around on Blipfoto from time to time. Theirs were the first encouraging messages that I received. I can't tell you how important this was.

I discovered the excellent tales of Lady Findhorn because I'd been reading the novel Lacuna, and decided to search for the name.

I think Amalarian (Molly) discovered me somehow, and she was just so encouraging of my efforts. I like many here felt her friendship reaching out to me and her death was such a tremendous shock when it happened.

As a geographer by adoption (rather than by qualification) I have always been interested in the power of story to bring places to life and there are lots of people who blip who have done this for me. The person that made the biggest impact on my early engagement with Blipfoto was HPX both for conveying the unnerving horror of living in an active earthquake zone and for her brilliance as a photographer. As an early morning person I often log onto Blipfoto first thing, which is just the time when the NZ blippers are posting (evening for them). So I must thank many NZ blippers for continuing to inspire me with the quality of their photography. In particular I'd like to mention Rainie who not only continues to offer much needed encouragement, she was also the inspiration for me to try out photo-club photography. Though I've taken photographs for years, I've learnt so much from my involvement with Blipfoto and the many excellent photographers who contribute to this site.

Lots more of you spring to mind as I write this, there's always a danger in naming some people and leaving others out, but big, big thanks to all of you with whom I have conversations through Blipfoto. You've made my life immeasurably richer. As well as the photographs I love to read your stories.

Finally I would like to say a big thank you to everyone at Blip Central for making this incredible site and ensuring it continues to work so efficiently. And thank you so much to gbradley for helping me out with a search query that I had last week and finding exactly what I needed when I'd failed.

p.s. More a reminder for me than any thought that you might want to scan through anymore words. We set off for Rowsley (near Chatsworth) just before lunchtime to visit `Gallery Top' to see the 'Small Print: BIG IMPRESSION' exhibition and came away with one print which we need to get framed. We'd intended to lunch at the Peacock which has a very good reputation for food but as they had a party in and couldn't feed us for thirty minutes we went next door instead. Second day out in a row! A very lovely part of the world but a pain of a drive through Sheffield in the morning and not great on our alternative choice of route home through Chesterfield.