Calendar time

It's that time of year again, when my thoughts turn to putting together a calendar for next year.  This year seems to have flown by.  My age is creeping up on me, I suppose, and while it feels like it must only be about March-time, it's nearly the end of October and the clocks change tonight.  

I had a sift through the photographs I've taken over the past year (and a few from the tail end of last year) and have been pleasantly surprised by what I have found.  I tend to take a lot of photographs if I'm out and about somewhere - at the beach (any beach), out in the woods for a walk, down at Stonehaven for an afternoon, over on the west coast for a long weekend.  It's easier to take pictures when you're on your own, I find.  It takes more concentration than I used to imagine, to capture images that are worth looking at again later.  And one tends to walk very slowly, looking at things along the way.  Up through the trees, down at the shells in the sand at your feet, over at the rock formations of the cliffs or the rocky shore. The bit of the whole process I love most is the looking through the images afterwards.  It's like opening presents - free ones, ones from myself to me.  Gifts of memories, instants in time.  The slope of a roof, the brilliant colour of flowers or leaves against an azure sky, the patterns made by lichens on old wood.   With the help of friends and followers on Facebook, I've whittled the images down to twelve, for inclusion in next year's calendar.  It was tempting to put two together, one of abstract images and one of purely flora, but I managed to resist.  Time to get on and finalise the order - I'll let you know when they arrive!  There is already a watercolour paintings calendar available for 2015, on the Store page.