Wanderings: 2018 - in numbers and pictures.

2018 ticks by - another 365 pictures of the day (and another 12 pictures of the month - see below).

A year in which I clocked up over a hundred days in Scotland, including almost 70 on Shetland. I've taken another 25000 pictures and walked over 1900 miles. I've also traded my 57 mile commute up the M40 for a 15 minute walk along the London Road in Headington.

For the first time in about 15 years I've not been outside the UK over the last 12 months; a consequence of wanting to progress my 'Scottish Landranger' project (still a work in progress) and wanting to spend more time on Shetland. A good outcome of that is I've 'only' clocked up 3300 flying miles.

I've made the time to do more hands-on volunteering work with BBOWT, with Trees for Life and with the John Muir Trust. And I've finally clocked up my 25th blood donation.

This is my 28th blogpost of the year - and my most heavily read post (by a big margin) was my celebration of my many visits over the years to Sumburgh Head (and, in recent years, to its cafe).

It doesn't feel like a good time to be making predictions about what the New Year has to hold. I keep hoping I'm going to find that the whole saga turns out to be a bad - if somewhat protracted - dream.

I suspect my personal coping strategy for the next year is going to involve getting my hands dirty doing more conservation-related volunteering and spending quite a lot of timing hanging out around the cliffs and headlands of the south end of Shetland, mostly with a camera in hand.

12 Pictures of the Month