Ten years of reasons to be glad (iolus)

This is another image I produced in Photoshop. I've used layers and some motion blur to give an impressionistic feel. It's a bed of gladioli, stately blooms with long colourful spikes of flowers, that were growing in the allotments in front of Salts Mill. They're kind of old-fashioned; I remember my grandma used to grow them in her garden. She used to call them 'gladdies'. Plenty of reasons to be glad... not least that it's my birthday today!

I also realise that I have now passed the ten year milestone for this blog. Ten years! How did that happen? When I started it in June 2009, my aim was simply to challenge myself: to take more photos, to take better photos, to take more notice of and learn more about my home village (Saltaire, which had recently been designated a World Heritage Site) and to learn how to compose a blog. I had not expected to fall in love so completely with the process and discipline of blogging. Nor did I foresee just how passionate I would become about photography or how that would open up the world to me, to learning and exploring. Nor did I realise that I'd make friends through blogging and through photography, some of whom have become really special to me. It's been (and still is) a genuine pleasure and a wonderful hobby. One day too, I guess, I'll be glad to look back on what is effectively my personal journal. It'll make me smile and remember all the good days. And if, as it seems, in the process I am making a few other folk smile sometimes, well, that's well worth it too, wouldn't you say?