Having bought a pile of darkroom equipment at auction back in September, and then spending a fortune on filling gaps and replacing worn out or second rate items (transformer, lens, bulbs, filters, trays etc etc) - and, of course, paper, I've been slowly learning and relearning the ropes. Multigrade papers and filters were in their not so good infancy when I last spent serious time in a darkroom 40 odd years ago. Thankfully we now have youtube, which has been an absolute Godsend, and I bought a copy of Tim Rudman's fine tome, but by crikey the learning curve is long and expensive.
I particularly struggled with RC paper, as it seems to need so little time under the enlarger, and the results weren't differentiating themselves sufficiently from those from my faithful Epson 3880, so I finally took the plunge (ouch) into a couple of boxes of 10x8 Ilford Warmtine FB. Oh, what a beautiful thing it is too, slow to work, but it rewards patience, and it is a visual and tactile treat. I think I'm beginning to climb out of the abyss, but I have no doubt I'll trip over on those words in no time at all. If I can just get on top of the basics in the first few months of this year, I think I'm going to stretch myself on one of the great Andrew Sanderson's workshops before he draws stumps on them at the end of 2024.