Happy New Year

I cannot recall when I last made a New Years's Resolution.  Indeed I think the last one I made was not to make any more. Checking my New Zealand blog (because I was in New Zealand for about nine New Years) seems to confirm my thoughts.

So far as I can recall the last New Year that I really celebrated with other people was in New Zealand too. 

When I came to the Island half a century ago this year 'First Footing' was very much the 'thing'. We had very small children and discouraged however well-meaning but drunken people from waking everyone up. I think in our township on Lewis it became almost a thing of the past after one of the neighbours wandered off into the moor in a disoriented and presumably drunken state and his body wasn't found for for years. 

So last night was a WhatsAppfest of good will messages before I made it to bed at 1am.

For those of you who read my blog I wish you a very happy, and above all healthy, year ahead.

I'm hoping to write and read and respond to a lot more blog posts this year. 

Well, that's the plan. 

But first I have to make a few resolutions.

It's a New Year

Four days have now elapsed since last year. Did you make New Year resolutions? I don't think I have made them since I was a child. It seemed very much more 'done' in those days. Or perhaps it just seems like that to me. Certainly I'm not aware of any of my friends who make them. Or perhaps they just don't share them.

To be honest I'm not sure that I quite understand the concept of a 'New Year'. What alters? Our attitudes towards our fellow men or our work or our play? Do we feel invigorated? Did we feel better when we woke on the 1 January? I suspect a lot of people felt decidedly less well than usual.

For me every time I wake up in the morning I am grateful. I am very conscious of how precious life is and how fortunate I am to be alive. 

The one thing it does enable us to do is to say to our friends that we hope they will have a very happy and healthy time in the year ahead. Perhaps we should have a Happy New Month or a Happy New Week or even a Happy New Day and think about people more frequently.

By the way if you did make any resolutions have they lasted this far?