Into the New Year...

We're well into another year, 2013, and for the superstitious the 13 on the end may not be too welcome, but could it be worse than the last year, or, come to that, the last few years with all economic crisis and all the doom and gloom that accompanies it? We'll see, and we haven't long to wait. By all accounts, it's more of the same and so far doesn't look very different, but let's be fair and give it a chance, it may surprise us.

After the Christmas festivities and the emotions of New Year's Eve, the entry of the New Year can only be an anticlimax. I had hoped we might get some snow around Christmas, but it was not to be. Last year it came in February and was substantial and made up for none around Christmas. Weather patterns have changed quite a bit since I was a boy and the seasons seem to have shifted. But why should the weather not change over the years, everything else has!

The world today is a very different one from that just 2-3 decades ago, and if we go back a little further it's like being on another planet! Thanks to scientific discovery and technological invention our world is in constant rapid change, with computers and mobile phones and other electronic devices leading the way and transforming our lives for better or worse. Either way, we have no control over these developments and we strive to at least keep up with them, not always with success. But there seems to be no other way to go even if we wanted to.

As our world around us changes, we too change with the advancing years. Some of us change in tandem with the changes going on around us and some of us lag behind, the gap growing wider with each successive technological innovation and new way of functioning in an ever more complicated society. I know that as electronic gadgets and devices become ever more advanced and supposedly easier and more intuitive, instead of simplifying things for me they complicate my life. The phone and the computer which were so easy to use once upon a time now require a lot of concentration and effort from me, as they are so replete with functions and options that I hardly know what I'm doing anymore. Even what seems to be a straightforward list of options presented to me becomes an almost insurmountable barrier of proposed new changes that leaves me spoilt for choice but confused for the same reason, so I tick one box and hope it's the right one for me!

Well, we've had the snows, the cold frosty weather, the icy winds, the flooding rains, the gradual thaw, and now in mid-February things have warmed up a little, but there's no guarantee that the sudden onset of mild weather will take us into spring. Many times before we've had worse weather as we've gone into March and April, and there have been years where we did not get any consistent warm-to-hot temperatures till July! From this you will deduce that here in the United Kingdom the weather is highly changeable and unpredictable from day to day, hence the reason we Brits talk about it so much and have made it our number one topic of conversation calculated to bore the pants of any non-Briton! But there you have it - it is what it is and has made us what we are and this isn't likely to change for several millennia to come when there might occur a massive meteorological upheaval. 

And this is where I finally conclude this post which has gone on for rather longer than I had anticipated and has been revisited various times by me over several weeks in an attempt to complete it before the end of this year and the advent of a new year, namely 1914! 

From 2011 to 2012

Well, another year is drawing to its close and we're on the threshold of 2012. The years seem to whiz by, especially in one's later years, and they soon become a blur. Many bad things have happened this year on the international scene, one could hardly imagine a worse year, and some not-so-good things have happened which touch upon my personal life, but on the whole the latter could have been worse although of course it could likewise have been better.

Times come and go, times change, we change as we grow older, and nothing seems the same anymore. People that we once took for granted pass away or pass on and our circle of family, friends and acquaintances takes on a different form and structure. Things that were part of our everyday environment have been discarded and replaced and though we scarcely notice this, a photo of how things once were set against a photo of how things are now will immediately reveal the changes.

All our Yesterdays and all our Tomorrows

We too have changed over the years, both physically and emotionally. The physical changes are of course the most easily noticeable, but the mental changes are no less powerful for being less visible. As I look back on my life, I know that my attitudes and approaches to the people and things around me have evolved and altered as my realities alter and as perhaps my options diminish and the time I have before me becomes markedly less than the time stretching behind me. And if at this point you should be curious to know my age, your curiosity will alas remain unsatisfied! Hehhe...

[BREAK FOR FESTIVITIES] ....

I did not actually have time to complete this post before the New Year caught up with me, so I'm writing the rest of this in 2012! But never mind, it makes no odds, the mood is the same... well, for a few more hours. I've had the cake, I've had the bubbly, and I've had a few nibbles, and in fact I think I've had a little too much to drink,as I'm feeling a bit woozy. But that's mostly affected my locomotion rather than my thought processes... hehhe.... though I rather think I should be horizontal in bed rather than propped up here in front of the computer screen! But, as I want to finish this post before I hit the sack, propped up in front of the computer screen it shall be! 

Out with the Old and in with the New

Now where was I before I was rudely interrupted by... myself? Ah yes, the pros and cons of the outgoing year. Now, as I was saying... ahwwwwwww, I just can't, it's too big a subject for me in my present semi-inebriated state, so I'll have to break off to replenish my batteries and get back to this. So until then, I wish my readers and followers a HAPPY & HEALTHY NEW YEAR 2012!

[off to beddy-byes] ....

It's now the evening of the first day of 2012 and time for me to wind up this post, and there will be no looking back over the past year as I over-ambitiously implied yesterday. I leave this to the mass communication media, who can do it and have already done it much better than I could possibly hope to do. 

As I write this I can still hear fireworks being let off sporadically. It seems every year the letting-off of fireworks goes on for longer and longer. And talking of fireworks, the great fireworks display on the Embankment was as usual spectacular and did not disappoint. With Big Ben and the London Eye as the centre-pieces of the display, it was an impressive extravaganza of light bursts illuminating the night sky. Wonderful!

Big Ben assailed on all sides by fireworks

And so we begin a new year. What will the new year bring? We can guess in many instances and as the year wears on we shall see if we're right. We can be sure of one thing: as always, it will be a mix of the good and the bad. The only question is how good will the good be and how bad will the bad be and how much will our personal life be affected by the events to come. The world now has become a very small place indeed thanks to instant global communications and super-fast travel, and what happens at one end of the planet is already being reported at the other before the dust has settled.  We're all in it together, though some will fare better than others. And the way things are going in the area of social networking and the like, there will less and less privacy of the individual in the year to come.There will simply be no place to run or hide anymore.

Welcome, Brave Virtual World!

Countdown to the New Year

The countdown to the New Year has begun and, just as with the lead-up to Christmas Day, there's a sense of expectation in the air. But on top of that is a feeling that one door is closing as another opens, the sensation of a certain finality. The end of one year and the start of another makes us acutely aware of the passage of time, and the older we are the more aware of this we are. At this time of the year, thoughts often turn to our mortality as we review all those celebs who passed away during the year.

But as we cannot do anything about the march of time and, as yet, very little about our ageing bodies, it is surely the best policy to behave in a way which will make our time on this earth as worthwhile as possible. So we make New Year’s resolutions that we hope will improve our lives in the year to come and make us more content and hopefully happier. We promise ourselves and others that we will do this, that and the other in the months ahead and, I suppose, at the time we make the promise we mean it. But a few days, weeks or months down the line, our resolve proves to be less than steadfast and the cracks are beginning to show. Still, what the heck, there’s always next year ... we can renew our resolutions then if it doesn’t work out this year. However, as the years go by and we grow older, we no longer see the need for New Year’s resolutions and indeed it gets less and less likely that we’ll be around to keep them!

Of course no New Year’s Eve would be complete without all the celebrations and general festivities associated with seeing in the new year, and so this NYE, as with every previous NYE, there will be the usual partying and razzamatazz and woe betide those who, for one reason or another, are not in a mood to whoop it up. The best place for them would be in bed, their ears muffled, their eyes closed, and preferably asleep! I’m sorely tempted. As for the rest, who are in the party mood, this is their chance after several days of rest following Christmas, to get in another bout of revelry and overindulgence.

After the parties, the fireworks, the singing and dancing, the jubilation and the general madness of New Year's Eve, there remains only one thing to say before the lights go out for 2009:

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR, FOLKS!