Another Year Older

 

So, it's bye bye 2025, hello 2026.

Every year, at the start of the year, I produce a post for this blog that is heavier on words than it is on photographs. I look back at the previous year and explore my thoughts for this blog in the coming year. Last year's post was, I admit, anticipating the end of the blog, or at least its significant decline. Yet during 2025 I published 11 posts, which is one more than I managed in 2023 and only two posts less than this blog began with in 2014. So, not a fatal decline. At least, not yet.

The photographs on this post are all from 2025. For one reason or another, they didn't make it onto this blog* at the time, so are doing their duty now by providing a brief flavour of 2025 as we say goodbye to it.

I have no plan for 2026. I didn't have much of one for 2025 and it somehow produced 11 posts. I'm going to approach 2026 in much the same vague way. 

I’m not going to aim for regular, or even semi-regular posts. Photos that I am particularly pleased with for technical or artistic reasons, or because an event or location is special as far as I am concerned, may get uploaded here, but only when the time is right. Words may, or may not, appear if there is a reason or resonance for their emergence. In other words, I am going to go with the flow and see where it does, or doesn't, take me. Years rush by far too rapidly for my liking (and yes, I know that's a sign of increasing age), so I'm going to approach 2026 in as leisurely a pace as it permits. It feels right for me. I'm hoping it's right for 2026 and in its twelfth year of existence, I reckon this blog deserves it.

* If you follow me on BlueSky or Facebook you may have seen some of them there.

Looking Forward - Looking Back 10 Years!

January 2023

So, another year, another start-the-year blog post. Except, this time round, as promised last January, it has to be a bit special. I started this primarily photographic blog ten years ago (or it will be ten years come February, because my first ever post was Saturday, 8^th February 2014).

So, another year and now a 10th Anniversary blog post. Who’d have thought? Well, I certainly didn’t back in February 2014. Indeed, I worried whether the blog would make it through 2014. If truth be told, last year I wondered whether I’d make it through 2023. I only managed ten posts last year – the lowest level of posting in the ten years this blog has been running. “Why was that?” you ask.

February 2023

Well, actually, you probably don’t, because, let’s face it, this blog and its owner don’t exactly have influencer status, which may be one of the reasons I felt, last year, that both I and the blog were running out of steam. I also had a lot of “stuff” going on and, whilst I was still taking photos, many of last year’s photos were phone pics. The pics made it on to my personal Facebook page, but few were posted here because, well, you know, quality.

 

So, as this is a post in which I look back and look forward. I’m going to make a thing of 2023’s phone pics. On and around the text of this post you will find twelve photographs taken on my phone in 2023, one for every month of the year just gone. The link going forward is that I undertake to post at least twelve posts in 2024, one for every month of the year to come. I may post more, who knows? I certainly don’t. You can, however, expect to find a post for each month of 2024. There will, hopefully, be new photos, but there may also be photos from the archives. It’s going to be a proper ten-year anniversary celebration.

 

March 2023

As they say, watch this space...

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

                                                                                                         

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December 2023

New Year's Thoughts 2023

So, yes, it’s that time of year again. The time that every year, since I started this blog way back in 2014, I’ve written a post to herald in the New Year whilst reflecting on the old. Next year, if I make it, it will have to be a big post because this blog will have been going for ten years, a whole decade, yikes! This year, however, it’s just been nine years, so I’m not going to make a big song and dance out of it.

 

To be honest, I’m not really sure what wise words to say about 2022 and I’m even less certain what to say about 2023. I don’t even have a plan for this blog. 

 

Do I do another photo-diary type year, upload themed posts, link things more closely to my writing and books, ask for prompts via this blog and Facebook? I’ve no idea. If you have any thoughts about what you might like to see on this blog in 2023, do leave me a comment below. 

 

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few photos from 2022 that I don’t think I’ve posted previously. They are mostly autumnal, but I'm feeling in an autumnal state of mind, and yes, I do realise it's January - that's the point of this post - but one's moods don't always match the seasons even if, in 2022, my photos did.

Welcome to 2022 – I hope

At this time of year, every year since I started this blog way back in 2014, I’ve written a post to herald in the New Year whilst reflecting on the old. I did it in January 2020, little knowing what was round the corner and then did it again, somewhat more cautiously, in 2021.

 

It turns out that 2021 was a rum old year for many people, myself included, and it ended up with me doing a stint in hospital (not COVID, but not good). My latest novel, Elderlight, was published while I was still languishing in a hospital bed and, needless to say, photographic opportunities were somewhat limited whilst linked to a beeping hospital monitor. My last post for this blog was 9^th October 2021. It feels like a long time ago. 

 

I have no idea what 2022 will bring in general or photographically in particular, and I’m not about to guess. I'm an older, wiser and certainly more subdued me. At the moment I’m still recovering and not likely to be out and about taking photos for some time to come, which saddens me (and my impatient walking buddy).

 

I’ll leave you with a phone photo which sums up much of 2021. It’s not an especially good photo, but it is topical and, I think, sums up the activities of many of us in the UK towards the latter half of 2021. I hope to post more picturesque photographs later in the year.

Waving Goodbye to 2020 – Smiling Nervously at 2021

January 2020

  At this time of year, every year since I started this blog way back in 2014, I’ve written a post to herald in the New Year whilst reflecting on the old. I did it last year, little knowing what was round the corner:
 
  “As for 2020...? I have no idea. I have a new novel coming out within the next month, so I'm guessing there's going to be cover shots for Old Light and I'm hoping there will be photos and words on and off throughout the next twelve months, but I have no plans. I'm just going to go with the flow, wherever it takes me.”
 
  I really had no idea where the flow was going to take me, or the rest of the world.

February 2020

I began optimistically across January and February with a gradual photographic cover reveal for the new novel. Old Light was published on 29^th February 2020 and then came March and COVID 19 and the first UK lockdown (By the way, a word of advice – don’t launch a new novel just before a pandemic: it plays havoc with your book sales). 

March 2020

  I resolved to go for daily walks and keep a daily, written diary. It therefore seemed logical that the “daily constitutionals should have a diary of their own.” I used the blog to attempt to capture a photographic essence of my daily strolls out and about. I naively thought these daily posts would be for a month or two at the most and that come summer the virus would fade away, as the flu always did. Wrong. So very wrong. I was and am grateful, however, to be able to walk so often. The wonderful countryside around me has kept me grounded and motivated during a difficult year.
 

June 2020

I finally concluded the daily photographic posts at sunrise on 20^th June, the longest day of the year, and then moved to monthly posts. In practice these became two or three times a month posts – my desire to only upload photographic masterpieces giving way to the feeling that I needed to document these strange pandemic days and the evolving seasons in my small corner of Cambridgeshire.  

 

December 2020

It’s now 2021 and I’m still posting images from my walks two or three times a month and I’ve decided that I shall continue to do so until the middle of March this year. By then I shall have captured an entire year of photos of my walks and you will be able, if you wish, to view my local surroundings through all the seasons, weathers and times of the day (mostly afternoon, though. I’m really not a morning person, despite getting up to see sunrise on 20^th June.)

 

What am I going to do after the middle of March? I absolutely have no idea, photographically speaking or otherwise. The publication date for Elderlight, the third novel in my Witchlight series, has disappeared into the mists of the pandemic, along with any plans I may have had for 2021. If nothing else, 2020 has taught me to expect the unexpected and so, with my heart in my hands, I am making no plans for 2021. We shall see what we shall see, shan’t we?

April 2020

 I cannot, however, end this post without an image or two of my walking buddy. He hasn't accompanied me on all my walks, he is a cat, after all, but he has been there for many of them and waited patiently while I have photographed things (including, cat forbid, dogs!) He has been an understanding and loyal companion.

                                     

November 2020

 

Farewell to 2019. Hello New Decade

Okay, it’s that time of year again. We've made it to the other side of the Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year and most of the western world is returning to its daily routines.

It’s become tradition, if you can call something that’s been happening since 2014 a tradition, that I write something to herald in the New Year whilst reflecting on the old.

This year, I've rifled my phone to pick twelve shots, each taken on a different month in 2019. The subjects are random, the quality embarrassingly variable, but they are a snapshot (literally) of where I and the phone went in 2019.

As for 2020...? I have no idea. I have a new novel coming out within the next month, so I'm guessing there's going to be cover shots for Old Light and I'm hoping there will be photos and words on and off throughout the next twelve months, but I have no plans. I'm just going to go with the flow, wherever it takes me.

Anyway, this was 2019 as seen by my phone camera...

January 2019

February 2019

March 2019

April 2019

May 2019

June 2019

July 2019

August 2019

September 2019

October 2019

November 2019

December 2019

Sunset. Sunrise.

Okay, it’s that time of year. The old year is dead. Long live the New Year.

It’s become tradition, if you can call something that’s only been happening since 2014 a tradition, that I write something to herald in the New Year whilst reflecting on the old. Last year I deviated a little in order to reflect on the link between my photography and my writing. This year, I’m not going to do that. Nor am I going to list the posts I uploaded in 2018. If you're interested you can check back to see for yourself. They're all still there. Waiting for you.

Instead, I shall simply leave you with a few photographs I took of the landscapes close to my home between 1st November and 31st December 2018 as a brief salute to the fade out of 2018.

As for 2019...? Well, let’s see, shall we? With a bit of luck there should be a few more photos and maybe, from time to time, some words.