Review of the Year

Tuesday 1st January

At this time of reflection I like to look back on the year past and also to the year coming.  The great achievement of 2012 was buying this house in France, nothing else has really come close.  No new grandchildren born, though there should be at least one next year.  No relatives dying or seriously ill either, which is again a relief.  The same job too which in a time of recession should be a good thing too.

Rather regretfully I have got far less writing done than I had hoped.  I have sort of finished the story, but like Catherine before it, at this stage it is too long for a short story and too short for a novel.  I need to start ruthlessly on a rewrite, one paragraph at a time, to brighten up the text, and to try to expand on some sections and add a bit more dialogue; make it more real and immediate.  So, one sort of resolution is to work on the book.

I spent two days this Christmas with my Mum and Dad, and I cannot help noticing how they are ageing, my Dad in particular.  So I intend to spend a bit more time with them in 2013.  As I usually go down to Walton on a Thursday night I will try to drop in maybe once a month at Stowmarket and then get two trains back to Walton on the Friday.  I am more and more conscious that one day they won’t be around.  And they have always been there – such a stable and reliable star in my firmament that I never imagined they might burn out one day.

I would like to think that the economy will begin to heal, though I imagine we will continue bumping along the bottom.  Not that that will necessarily improve Labour’s fortunes; at the moment they are benefitting from mid-term disillusionment with the Government (witness also the rise of UKIP), but as the inevitable General Election crawls closer more and more questions will be asked as to what Ed Milliband would be like as Prime Minister, and the answer may not be so good.  We will see.  We do have the trials of Rebecca Brooks and co. to look forward to however, so 2013 may not be so dull at all.

In all probability it will be the things we never expected that make the year intersting.