Do take a seat

In Blip's endearing way of counting, this '8th birthday' marks the 365 photos I've taken since 5 May last year.

When I started blipping, eight years and seven months ago, I wanted to take amazing photos, impress people and get feedback about how to improve. None of those things happened and none of them matter to me any more. I didn't understand back then when seasoned blippers said it was about keeping a journal and about relationships with other blippers. I do now and I'm glad to have a personal record of this momentous 'year' of mine (the self-indulgent links are for me - I have no expectation that you will look):

I spent five post-retirement weeks in France and Spain (remember travel?), having a great time with Veronica and S, thinking hard about what retirement should contain and fulfilling a very long-standing ambition to visit Cordoba.

I enjoyed two slowed-down weeks teaching English on the narrowboat - which is where I should be right now (remember no Covid?) - ending in Liverpool where I blipmet Folkie.

I exploded with elation and unearned pride watching Son perform at WOMAD (remember festivals?), I saw Patti Smith in Glasgow (remember gigs?) and I went to the Edinburgh Festival with Tivoli, WhiskyFoxtrot and Ursonate and saw lots of other performances utterly unaware that I'd soon lose this sustenance. 

I met a bunch of much admired blippers in Leith where a counterfeit SD card meant I lost all my photos. I was gutted, but the company mattered more.

I spent ten days in London with hosts of other people trying in vain to save the habitat of humans and coming to the conclusion that we don't deserve it.

Then, from the middle of October I started work in earnest on changing my own personal habitat and my blips got tediously boring as I had no time for pictures other than those I took in order to Freegle things away plus the odd record of work I did to get the house sellable. 

In February the excavation and sorting of bricks started. Probably the less said about them the better, for now, but they will feature again during year nine.

In March and April I made the best of the thwarting of my moving plans by mending things, trying to propagate my apple tree and making a portable garden - which has now turned into my first ever proper vegetable garden with actual roots in the soil. A revelation. (Remember how loud the bees were when all the cars had stopped?)

In May, finally, I moved, and since then I have been doing masses of DIY. Too much. I have to find a way to rest my hands and I have decided that I will walk, and take pictures of things I am not doing. I don't remember how to do that, but if I go back through my journal I might be reminded.

It's a useful thing, a Blipfoto journal.

Thank you for keeping me company through all of it. I wouldn't be able to do all this without you.