05:00. Still dark. I wake up uneasy because although for most this Christmas / New Year period is a time of aestivation, I have much to do. I have a new budgeting system that I have to build for work which is not as far along as I would like, and the deadline for which is approaching like a concrete wall. As mentioned in yesterday's PAD I've recently bought a new refrigerator, and while money is if not abundant certainly sufficient at the moment, I think forward to ten years hence when the shiny new one that will arrive next Saturday is coming to the end of its life. At that time my personal odometer will have ticked over a further 10 years and I think of the natural bias that employers have against supposedly "older" workers (i.e., anyone over about 45) and wonder how sufficient it will be then unless I do something about that. Which I have plans to do, but plans which are also not as advanced as I would like. And finally I think of the deadline for entries to next year's Royal Easter Show photographic competition which I entered this year, want to enter next year, and because of my photographic hiatus still don't have a decent entry for though I could bluff my way through by doing the entry and then shooting the photo later. (You have to submit the title when you enter, not the actual photograph. That comes later.)

05:30: I fire up my noble chariot and punch it down the highway. Hmm, fuel prices are lower than they've been for a while; $1.29/L after discount. I pull in and refuel, again casting my mind forward 10 years before which my car will also need replacing, and put that thought aside. We head back down the highway and reach the beach. It's overcast; this will not be the day for a competition-worthy shot. Again. Screw it, it'll do for a PAD, I think.

Then I see the fence. A gorramn cyclone fence erected all the way along the beachfront separating me from the shot I want. "Mutter, curse, swear", says I, as I sprint down it before the light goes.

Going, going, being lost in time as everything else is.

"Mutter, curse swear!" I reiterate, as I decide that the only option I've got is to max out the height of the tripod and shoot through the trees just before the sun vanishes behind the cloudbank and depletes all of the remaining colour from the sky.

Another sunrise down…

Last Year