(Well, 366 – it was a leap year!)

One of my ‘100 things’ in 2020 was to do a 365 photo challenge, essentially, just take a photo every day. I don’t know if there are actual official channels for that sort of thing but I was, for the most part, just planning to keep it for myself. I’ve tried before but always failed. I normally get to a point where I’ve taken a series of very poor quality pictures and I embarrass myself with my own lack of skill! But this time I soldiered through!

My main aim was just to document something every day to get myself taking pictures more consistently. I found this challenging at many, many points! I struggled to find ‘beauty’ around the Raigmore hospital where I was doing my PIPS, I struggled to find things in my flat during lockdowns, and sometimes I was just purely unmotivated and uninspired. Sometimes, it would get the end of the day and I’d just take a lame, half-hearted selfie (normally in bed), but I’m glad I took those lame selfies and just kept going! As I mentioned, I wasn’t really planning to put this anywhere remotely public, but now I’ve succeeded in taking all the photos and put them together, I kind of like it! It does mean some of the photos are more personal or mundane than I would have liked! I’ll bear that in mind for future years!

All black and white photos mark what I call an ‘M.E. day’. If you’ve ever read anything of mine before you probably know that I am mostly recovered from M.E. (a chronic illness I developed around 4 years ago), but I still have the odd ‘mini-relapse’. These last longer than a day, but the black and white photo marks the point at which I thought I was peaking or felt particularly bad.

Anyway, my year started out strong in January with a trip up to Banff and Macduff on new years day and I finally got a chilli on my plant. I also gave a talk to the Tarland bee group and I started my PIPS internship at the Raigmore hospital in Inverness. I stayed up in Inverness over February and March, but came back a few times to go to an EASTBIO event, celebrate my best pal’s birthday, get my contraceptive implant changed and do a STEM course. During one of my trips back I took a picture of a notice in the zoology building asking people who had travelled through Wuhan in the last fortnight to self-isolate. I thought it would all blow over and I wanted to look back on that crazy time we thought a pandemic might happen! Ha! Anyway, back in Inverness I used my new location as much as I could to get to a few places further afield, like the Isle of Skye, Nairn, the Black Isle and Loch Ness. I would have travelled more but in mid-March my PIPS was cut short due to things with COVID looking more serious. So, I came home and quarantined for a bit. We all know what happens next… lockdown! I mooched about the house, bought a Nintendo switch, played a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and made some cocktails. At the beginning of June, I turned 33 years old. Somewhere around the end of June I had my worst IBS flare up ever, I looked pregnant and I thought I might have appendicitis. It was awful. These are the personal (and unflattering) photos I was speaking, but they certainly mark a moment!! Post-June, I did some crafts, was able to get back to the lab and collect some honeybee samples and then in mid-July I was able to get a train down to Herefordshire to see my parents. That trip was extended because of awful weather, a derailment in Stonehaven the day I was meant to travel and an Aberdeen lockdown. All the omens told me to stay in Hereford a while longer, so I did! When I finally got back, I dyed my hair pink, started to travel more around Aberdeenshire again, had my first vehicle breakdown and started seeing my friends more again. Then I visited a lot of graveyards so I could write a blog, I carved pumpkins for the first time in years and had a banging afternoon tea. In December I just plodded on, went blonder and had my first Christmas away from my family, spending it in Aberdeen with my partner.

All in all, when I look at all the photos together, I realise it wasn’t actually a bad year, despite the pandemic!

I’m trying to do it again this year and my aim is to be more creative, and maybe take better pictures in general (whatever that means)! I ‘only’ have my iPhone as a camera, but I’ve recently been super inspired by some amazing iPhone Instagram accounts and that makes me want to try out some different things and play around more. I was also very lucky that my parents helped me buy a GoPro this Christmas, so I’m hoping to have a play with that as much as possible and maybe add some short clips of video to my 365. Watch this space.