New Year's Eve

A grey and wet day for the this afternoon, last day and last blog of the year.  Two of my friends celebrate their birthdays today, Tristan is 29 and Christian is 64.  This afternoon, Paulette and Christian asked me to go for a walk with them from the mill at Coz Salou at the end of my village, on a very wet and muddy, heavily-leaved path through the countryside.  To think that a few months ago I wouldn't and couldn't have considered the walk even in the sunshine and with the aid of a cane, and now I walk without a stick and in the drizzle!  It was a good way to spend an hour and I do enjoy walking with them.

Christian took my camera to photograph a tree which has a very convoluted root system which has a stream running under it.

Buds on branches in the lane to the calvaire.

After the walk I went back to change my wet trousers, socks and shoes and then had a couple of cups of coffee with Paulette and Christian at their house.  It was a lovely way to end 2011.

It's been a difficult year in some ways, but ultimately rewarding.    Friends and family rallied round me when I needed them and I'm very grateful to them all.   I have ended the year in much better health and probably with more years ahead of me that I would have had without my gastric bypass.  

I have made just a few New Year's Resolutions:

To get organised so that I remember to succession sow salad veggies and have a continuous supply instead of a glut and a deficit. 

To get fitter as I get slimmer and walk whenever I can. 

To arrange my affairs - business and papers that is - I should be so lucky as to have the other sort! 

To sort out my books and get rid of at least 200 of them. 

To try to reduce my freezers to two and a half. 

If I achieve a couple of these I shall be happy.

New Year's Eve

Twenty-eleven is used up and spent

The months, weeks and days who knows where they went

The minutes whizzed past, the time disappeared

This getting older is just as I feared.

They told me this happened, that time would fly

Between giving up work and  the day that I die

Not enough seconds in each passing day

To write all the things I wanted to say.

I thought they were joking, that time would stand still

I'd be looking for things the hours to fill

But time zips on by with things left undone

The "to do" list gets longer while I'm having fun.

Fifty-two weeks more are coming next year

To live and plan for and enjoy being here

I expect they'll go quickly like all the rest

I'm hoping twenty-twelve may yet be the best.

Sandra E Chubb

31.12.11

Well - I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and many more of them!

Three things I like:

1.   That the days will be getting longer and lighter as we go into 2012.

2.   That I am here to see another New Year in, and most important

3.   That I have good friends and my family.