After the storm? Why “after”, when Storm Dudley is still whistling around these parts and, we’re told, Storm Eunice is just behind? The storm I’m referring to has been a personal one, and it appears now to have largely blown through, with only the occasional gust remaining to disturb a new equilibrium. I’ve been working my way off medication I was prescribed a long time ago, and a feeling of normality is beginning to return, albeit it one that’s been accompanied by withdrawal symptoms that have been akin to being moderately drunk all the time, but with none of the woozy euphoria!

The arrival of this new normality comes at a good time, because in a couple of weeks I’ll be back to part-time working in my day job (I’m able to flex my working pattern through the year), and will once again have more free time to spend taking photographs. I wonder now how my non-medicated self will see things, and whether it’ll make any difference to the pictures I take? Perhaps not, but it’ll be interesting to see.

My first post-medication trip will be up to Whitby, for a weekend staying at the remarkable Mount House. The plan is to take more photographs of the stretch of coast from Robin Hood’s Bay up to Sandsend, building my portfolio of the area. I want to try, if possible, to avoid the more obvious views of these places - the ones you’ll see regularly on Instagram - but still create something that is identifiable, and I wonder if a clear, drug-free head will help me to see those views more easily. I do hope so. 

Until the weekend comes, though, I return to my day job. I wonder if the train will be running today; and if the words I need to find for a report I have to finish will come to me; and whether those above me will approve…