Past Glory, Dead Summer

My apologies for my absence from Blip over the last couple of weeks and thanks to those generous souls who wondered where I disappeared to. For a variety of reasons my head sort of slipped out of the state of mind that is Blip and photographic inspiration dried up. For a few weeks past all my effort has been focused into maintaining my attendance at the Tuesday night canoe sessions in Pangbourne - they did me good in a number of ways; providing a challenge, some structure to what otherwise is the amorphous mess of my life, good company and, now that they are finished and my British Canoe Union "One Star" assessment passed, a certain sense of achievement. Everything else has taken a back seat however, including blip, as it has required quite a mental effort to keep it up and it has taken a cumulative physical toll. If this all sounds rather exaggerated for a bit of mild exercise a couple of hours a week - I know! but it has surprised me just how much of an effort its been and brought home how much I've physically deteriorated over the last year. The end of the course was quickly followed by something of a mental and physical shut down not helped by my succumbing to a "bug" which has proved hard to shift.

So now that's out of the way - back to blipping!

The sad state of my once glorious sunflowers seemed an appropriate punctuation point - the brilliant summer is over and its time to summon our resolve, stiffen our sinews and prepare for the colourful decline of Autumn and the Year's Death that is winter....lets hope for an early Spring and ressurection.