So, a challenging photography assignment - this was the target I set myself back in September when I wrote the piece below. The website software (Wordpress) is doing its best to prevent me from creating the look I want, so lots more frustration in prospect there. The verandah job however starts today.

It's not going to be an easy one. Jean is a close friend and a sometimes delightfully, sometimes frustratingly eccentric one. I also have to co-ordinate our builder friend Neville and a digger driver to get the ground work done, so the job has a much higher than average potential for "mission creep".  This was the site this morning:

My first task is to screw 2x2 battens to the wall, fill the gaps with wool insulation (Jean is very keen on natural materials) then a waterproof breathable membrane and then clad with hardwood planks that Jean and her (sadly now dead) husband John had milled and stored in their barn. The timber is well air-dried now, but all different sizes.

Please feel free to comment!

13 September 2017

The days are drifting by.  No sooner have I brushed my teeth in the morning than I'm doing it again in the evening.

At the point where I got back from Iceland the project that had driven me for the last 6 months ended abruptly. For all that time I had been intensely focussed on the trip and all that went with it. Suddenly my focus was blurred, and darkened by a sense of failure - that I had not achieved as much as I had hoped. I was more than ever determined to become a better wildlife photographer, but July is the off season for warm blooded creatures - they've mostly done their breeding for the year and can take a bit of time off. The only immediate goal I had was to get the van running properly. What would happen after that was a confused jumble of intentions - writing? More van conversion? Gardening?

Through July and August with the summer slipping away, I felt that simply knowing the final total would be a relief. In a way it was though worry about the cost gave way to a feeling of shame that I had disregarded all the signs that the van had been hammered by the previous owner. It was dirty, the door seals were frayed, everything worn and battered, but by then I was up against the clock. If I was to do the conversion in time I needed a van!

I was angry too - that the garage we had been with for 18 years had led us into a dreadful spiral of cost and delay. Angry, ashamed and too often tense, what I needed was a sense of purpose.

Now, I think I have found it. My Iceland trip had shown that I could write a successful blog: I still hate the word - an ugly portfolio of web and log - but it is a term almost everyone knows and understands, so it will have to stay. I also discovered that the commitment to updating a blog is a powerful incentive to completing a project. From being a vague "thing I would like to do" it becomes a fixed goal with failure not an option. There are lots of things I would like to achieve in the few years of physical fitness which remain, but "becoming a better wildlife photographer" is much too vague. How would I measure this? What would tell the small world of those who read what I write, that I had proved to my harshest critic - myself - that I had succeeded? A quick scan of proposals for inclusion in my bucket list, and the answer is obvious: Which of the great charismatic creatures would be the most rewarding to catch in mega bites, which the most prized target to "shoot"? No contest; it has to be an eagle. Which of the two eagles in Britain, Golden or White-tailed? Both of course.

Even for the BBC with all its resources this is a tough one. Eagles have huge territories and where nests are known to the conservation organisations they are kept secret. I would either have to locate a nesting territory unknown to the conservationists, or  prove my so far non-existent credentials by volunteering, or pay someone local to help me.

All these cost money, and my base income - what comes in each month without earning - would not cover it. I would have to find ways of raising money, but that too could be an ingredient for the blog

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There would also be some hefty physical challenges. You don't see Eagles by the roadside, and now that the last remaining Hawswater eagle has died that means I would need to spend time in Scotland and be ready to carry a heavy pack over many miles of rough ground. Scotland in May can be cold and that means a constant struggle to keep my hands warm. All this would be grist to the bloggers mill.

My one regret about my Iceland blog was that I didn't have a card with a web address to hand out to people I met on route. I can easily design a card, but it should be linked, not just to the blog, but to a website from which I could sell things to raise money. Isn't it getting nicely complicated? Let's get some order into it: a to-do list:

Get some help with a website. I plan to offer prints and greetings cards from my pictures, but I've not made much progress yet with setting up a new website to do this. I really need to rope in Chris Robertson. Would he be OK about featuring in a blog?

Earn some money from woodwork: this means making real progress soon on Jean Slater's verandah/conservatory. Will she be OK about being in a blog?

Start researching the trip. I will need to read books as well as search the web. More money needed, which leads to the next item:

Set up a budget. I can start with the one I did for my last trip to Scotland.