3000 Blips and Luke's birthday

Today is Luke's birthday - 25 years ago my life changed irrevocably but definitely for the better when I became a parent for the first time. Luke says he is feeling old - I also remember feeling old when I turned 25, it seems to be a watershed year in which you wave goodbye to your youth and are now very definitely an adult. However, how laughable is that to feel old at 25, my goodness, it is still so young.   

Today is also my 3000th blip - Gavin was very surprised when I told him I had reached this milestone as it seems like only the other day that I started my 365 photo project only to still be here over 8 years later! It is the wonderful Blip community that keeps us going, as we all know. Thank you for that wonderful support.

This morning after breakfast and after Luke had opened his presents we went to Epsom Downs for a walk as I wanted to show Luke the incredible view of London from there. On a clear day you can easily identify the landmark buildings of the city and Canary Wharf - except today was grey with thick cloud and poor visibility so we could not get a good view. Such a difference from the beautiful day we had yesterday.

Epsom Downs is a public common but is also home to the Epsom Downs race course - it must be one of the few race courses in the world situated on public property, so you often see the race horses while out walking. I did not realise that the horses train on the course until midday (I thought they were up early and done by breakfast time) and so dogs have to be kept on the lead when walking which was not great for Xena. There are marshals preventing the public from getting too close to the horses or on the track as they are coming along. I was not allowed to get into a better position for this shot so the barriers are annoyingly obstructive here, but it was still lovely to see these beautiful horses.

I have added an extra of the birthday boy on our walk this morning.