Three Thousand

And like the last big milestone I thought I'd mark it in the sand on the beach.
Rain in the air and a chillier morning than it was five hundred blips and a little over sixteen months ago. As then I wonder if I should try to do that analysis of all those pictures - how many portraits, landscapes, pictures of football, of concerts, shots taken on jobs, in Portobello, on holiday. The map on the beach attempts to show the relatively limited geographical spread of my three thousand blips - across three of the four nations of the UK and the briefest of forays across the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
In the last five hundred I seem to have been to a few more games of football - United across the bridge in Dunfermline more than once, across the border in Berwick and title winners across the other side of town. And a few music gigs - big, bigger and small. A good number of paid jobs of one sort or another, from Highland Perthshire to the Caley, St Andrews to Portobello. photographing former presidents, Nobel prize winners, wedding couples, charity runners, grandchildren (not mine!) and wedding bands, to pick just a few. And for fun, on my own time, I have photographed friends, lots of friends, Oscar winners and Scottish BAFTA nominees, more friends, things happening in Portobello, through the year. Friends doing things from getting all their hair cut off, to making a bangle, putting on an exhibition or photographing a demonstration. Or just agreeing to pose! Not that long ago I completed my eighth year of blipping, and we made a five-minute film in 48 hours. We gathered on The Meadows to remember a friend. And visited the Kelpies for the first time. I had a picture on the front page of The Times. We got two-thirds of the way up Goat Fell on our holiday to Arran. My Dad posed with a penguin. A violin maker pose with his newly created instrument. There was a parade on the Prom, and an Indian party. People I met accidentally, I then went to see again. I've seen Portobello in all weathers and caught some great action on the beach.
Looking back through it, that seems quite a lot to pack in to five hundred days. But no different from many others on here who tell the stories of their lives through their blips. Still a wonderful place so heartfelt thanks to those who keep the site running and to all my fellow blippers that delight me daily with their different views of the world.
Three thousand down, on to the next thousand!