Round up of the year

I have never gone in for New Year in the least. It is my mothers birthday today and, as a family, we always celebrated that rather than the date change. It is many years, I have to admit, since I have even stayed up until midnight, much more likely to be found tucked up in bed like a chaste old maid. So no doubt this year will be no different.
I also don't tend to go in for things like new resolutions. I have always believed that if you want to change something you just start immediately, there is no point in imbuing the date with a significance that it is going to help. Whatever works for you I suppose. I changed my life by simply making a decision and sticking to it, which had nothing to do with a new year.

Much more interesting to me is spending just a few moments reflecting on the year that has been, the highs and lows, the changes, the achievements. There have been changes in my attitude towards where I live. The first year I was here was about making my new house habitable. This year has been about making it my home. There have been disasters, a foot through my bath meant I was without a bath for over 6 months, but with a (hell of a lot of) effort, I have now a completed bathroom that I am proud of as well as new skills learnt in doing this myself. As I showed in my last post my garden has really come to something lovely this year too. That aside, I have not really done any more work on the house and I feel it is just about finished (or as finished as it can be on my budget). So I have used the time to fully settle in here and put down roots. Long, permanent roots.

Of course putting down roots has meant that there have been struggles in other ways. Leaving for months at a time for work has become a strain this year and I realised something very important: that although I had changed my life and moved to the other side of the country I had not committed fully to the change and had left my working life in the South. Well, of course it was slightly more complicated than that but I found the drag of packing a suitcase for 8 weeks at a time away from home in a place I didn't want to be, hours of driving and a whole summer away from home, is not the way I want to be so this year has brought a massive attitude change with all of that. Now I have fully committed to a life here I have no regrets, no doubts, nothing negative. Well that has to be worth plenty.

There have been ups and downs, new friends made, others lost. I have blogged (all be it sporadically at times) and lots of you have followed the journey. Some of you have gone beyond that and made the effort to check that I am alright at times of silence (you know who you are) and every one of my followers is appreciated.

Oh, and I turned 40 :-)

I think it is worth spending a few minutes reflecting on the year and looking forward to what the next will bring and I wish you all joy and luck over the next 12 months.