Take a Picture. It'll last longer.

Youl will see on this website over 100 posts. Many of them are stories of my travels through Europe and across the world. In many of those entries there are hyperlinks to photos in my photo album.

There is one thing that has been with me the whole time I've been travelling. And that is my camera.

I have taken literally tens of thousands of photos on my camera - over 1000 in two weeks in India alone - since I got it in April 2006, just before I left for ther UK for the first time.

Actually I didn't buy my camera. It's something I don't remember thinking I'd need before I left for the UK, which in hindsight is absolutely insane. There's no way I'd do that now.

So to whose foresight do I owe a digital imprint of my memories from my mass of travels over the last three years? My sister and (now) brother-in-law. They had been on a world trip themselves, and when giving out presents at the end of their trip they gave me a camera case. I politely thanked them.

Then they gave me the camera. A very hardy little device it is too. It's a Sony Cybershot, 6.0 megapixels, 3.0x optical zoom and 5.1x digital zoom. Those figures are not impressive nowadays, particularly the megapixels. But it was always more than I needed: I always set it on 2.0 megapixels.

Most of the silver paint has come off now, particularly where I hold it. Also, a couple of days before I set off on a massive eight week jaunt through Europe in May 2008, the button that takes the photos broke off. It's now held on by plaster tape purchased in a Parisian hardware store.

But the march of time affects us all, not least digital gizmos, so it is time for an upgrade. The new camera, a Panasonic Lumix, with 10x optical zoom (the main reason I made the change). If it gives me half as much joy as the the Cybershot, it will have served me well.

So thank you Cybershot, you little battler. You haven't quite gone to Cybershot Heaven yet, you're on the bench and will be used in the future, in the case of emergencies.

And thank you so much to Kristy and Dave - you have no idea how useful your present has been to me!

(It's suitable that my picasa web albums are full now. But I will have to get a pic of the little battler up on the blog as soon as I can.)