Wednesday 31st December 2025, 8.40pm (day 5,242)

It’s just a day like any other of course but thanks to its position in the calendar there does seem a certain obligation to mark it. A modicum of sociability was thereby achieved, though we didn’t stay out until midnight. Jax becomes, probably, the person with the longest gap between first and second appearances on here — that is also her to the right of this portrait from January 2015.
Happy New Year to her and to you all. Of all the places I visited in 2025, Orkney was definitely the best — at the end of that week Clare and I were, virtually, both planning moves there. It’ll never happen though. This picture of Stromness was the last one taken there (August 2nd at 6.40am, the earliest shot of the year) and evokes the memories very well. My favourite picture of the year photographically is probably the one of the guide at the Great Tapestry of Scotland on June 8th in Galashiels — it just turned out very well and as I hoped it would. What will 2026 bring? Let’s find out.








