Day 1827 – the end.

I’ve now completed five years of my PAD, which I started on 8th March 2003. When I started this, there were only three PADs on pbase, two of which were people I knew, one of whom was David, whose PAD was the very first to appear here on pbase. David had a six month break in 2006 and the other two disappeared so mine became the longest-running PAD on pbase by default.

I did not set out to do it for five years, in fact, I don’t even know that I expected to do a year, having, as I do, the attention span of a flea. However, what I do have is stamina and bloody-mindedness so somehow I’ve found myself still here after all this time.

Today though, it ends. I’m finishing my PAD now. It’s time to draw a line and to stop.

When I started I wanted to give more of a glimpse into life than simply a photo alone, which I knew from watching David’s PAD often didn’t reflect his day as such, it was just a picture with no anchor, no reference point and no meaning over and above its simple being. I’m not saying that’s wrong or not good enough, I’m just saying I wanted to make a PAD about a life. My life, whether good, bad or ugly.

So, I stuck my toe in the water, tentatively at first but gaining confidence as time went on. I found myself liking the experience and loving the friendships made along the way. Meeting people, whether in person or in cyberspace has been a joy.

Thanks for making it such a magical mystery tour.

I want to end with two thoughts, one from Dr Seuss…..

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.

I didn’t set out to make it happen, it grew and flourished with each day.

The other from Depeche Mode (see, I couldn’t go without a reference to one of my musical heroes)……

“it’s a lot like life and that’s what’s appealing”

My guess as to why I’ve had 3 million hits when I’ve not really been one to play the game is that people read it like a magazine or a newspaper, they get drawn in on a google search about something trivial then stay a while.

BUT, it takes me a lot of time and effort to keep it up and I need a break from that. I’ve just calculated that an hour a day (roughly my time taken to shoot pic, write my stuff and post) equates to 76 whole days (of 24 hours) or the equivalent of 228 working days of 8 hours a day. That's more than any UK company would expect to get from an employee in a year of paid work. It’s a big commitment that I didn’t know I was making when I started. So, it’s time to finish.

Goodbye.

Love from

Linda x

I'm delighted to be able to link to last year's shot, which was one of my favourite ever PAD shots, colourful, quirky and horticultural!

The year before (2006) was a bit of a duffer pic-wise but a nice reminder of how our bathroom has improved from this grim hole!

The year before (2005), I was toasting friendship with two of my pbase friends, Jeanne and Tony in California....cheers to you two - and much love.

In 2004, I'd just come home from the trip when we bought our little cottage in Cornwall and, after all the legal stuff, were about to become Cornish residents!