New Year 2018

The snow that seemed so unconquerable a week ago has slipped away in the mild rain that has fallen yesterday. Nothing can resist the onslaught of a determined foe and the ice yields reluctantly to water for now leaving behind a brown, flattened landscape that is uninspiring. Christmas has now come and gone and though enjoyable as ever the anti-climax is palpable. In our hearts and minds we build it much bigger than we can ever achieve. It must be a remnant of childhood memories that plays a recurring theme through the rest of our lives. A time of warmth, love and safety with all those that have now left us. It is if you will; a reflection of our innocence when Christmas was a time of magic and life was evolving at a much slower and less cynical pace.

For now the time of year is for some sad reflections and perhaps recriminations. Nothing ever quite works out the way we want and yet the heart wells ever optimistic for a new year. If I have learnt one thing it is that there is no perfect life for us as we grow older. It doesn’t get any easier and things change because they must and that change will out, no matter the resistance to it. So my resolution for the New Year then is to begin to not keep putting off till tomorrow what can be achieved by me today, to be a little healthier and fairer and to finish my book by this time next year. I’m getting going now because I finally worked out how to do it the way I want. But it only took 50 years!

I plan to have a quiet time but whatever you plan to do tonight have a wonderful new Years Eve and opening to the year ahead.

1st Jan 2010
Another year and also another decade begin and I wonder what shall they bring? Strangely enough as I grow older the big wishes and drams lessen and much smaller visions suffice. Just yesterday I couldn’t have known that today I would be standing in the centre of my frozen pond during a snow shower. I did have visions of it cracking under the strain but it held. One never knows what tomorrow will bring? The things we experience are not always good things but they are always challenging.

I’ve had10 days off work but it feels like only a weekend has passed. I had loads of plans and projects but they came to nothing in the end. Some because I couldn’t get motivated but all the outdoor jobs were stopped due to frozen or snow covered ground. We had a white (snowy) Christmas and New Year.

Nick got me a higher definition camera for Christmas so maybe you’ll see a difference in the pictures below. I took a picture of a wasp queen nestled in the garden shed doorway. She's got a light sprinkling of snow but I blew it off before I closed the door.

Happy New Year

Well Wednesday seems a small day for the end of a big year but let’s remember how far we have come and how much has happened to us. The world can be a funny place; alliances between people form through time and are often easily broken. For within all we remain creatures of instinct and selfish preservation. But rarely does it happen that something is found that will last a lifetime. Such was finding you for now the days bless the nights and hope rekindled that someone could be so unselfish and faithful. I never pretend things are easy and that our lives are simple and yet the fact remains that we have found each other. I shall never let you go for I have such need you. So for that I apologise because that makes me selfish. I fully intend to remain so for the rest of my life. No poems or long declaration on this day for all that I need to say is; I love you.