In with the new...

(I'm getting a bit hooked on these weird Victorian cards)

It's been another mixed year (has it ever been anything else?) - a world in chaos, so much political madness and ineptitude, hate, corruption and violence beyond most people's comprehension but, as always, the positive flip side to it is  the responses of ordinary, decent folk just getting on and doing the right thing. As for my own 2017, well it was better than 2016 which was marked by loss and grief from the start, and actually not an awful lot has happened - which is pretty much a good thing!  

My edited highlights - I can't do favourites and lists! - would include falling utterly in love with Detectorists and being gripped by Line of Duty on TV,  having hedgehogs visiting the garden every night, seeing Blondie at Brixton Academy,  getting some top albums (particularly Saint Etienne 'Home Counties', the XX 'I See You' and Jane Weaver 'Modern Kosmology') finding a newt (simple pleasures!), a trip to the National Portrait Gallery, meeting up with lovely old friends, making new ones, being given the very special The The single 'We Can't Stop What's Coming' and all that it means, witnessing a pair of bluetits successfully using the nestbox again (was it four chicks or even five?), having fun illustrating for a notable toy company, buying a mad stripey coat...  I've probably forgotten loads because none of it is that important in the grand scheme of things, but at least nothing life-changing, nothing dramatic, just some sweetness in a fairly uneventful life for which I'm grateful.  I hope it's been the same, if not better, for you.

Saint Etienne: Sweet Arcadia

It's been brilliant escaping into Blogworld whenever I've had the time, enjoying everyone else's posts and comments - all the words, music, pictures and more, trying to keep up with writing and listening myself - and getting to know some fab new faces and places around this virtual wonderland too.  

So, thanks; here's to more.  Take care everyone and...

~ * ~  HAPPY NEW YEAR!  ~ * ~
"May the hinges of your friendships never rust"
x

Happy New Year

While out walking off one Toffifee too many in the mist yesterday I took this photo on my phone and realised it could be a kind of analogy for life, especially at this moment as we transit from one year into the next.  Following the path to a future that is unseen (or should that be ‘unwritten’ to paraphrase Joe Strummer?) - none of us knowing  quite what lies ahead.  That’s not strictly true in the case of this photo's subject as I know it to be a big old manor house with sheep and a moat with ducks and stuff but, if I didn’t know that, well, I’d still keep walking anyway.

The analogy continues: the path is rutted and full of potholes, but navigable if you take it slowly; in the distance to my left there is a graveyard, and although I know it can’t be, on the lower middle right of this photo I noticed a small unexpected shaft of white light which looks kind of ghost-like. (Believe me, I’ve zoomed in on it a few times in the strange hope of figuring it into Bowie’s face but to no avail.) 

There's no doubt that this has been year of awfulness for the world, much of it genuinely shocking and unfathomable and, for many like me a year of deeply sad personal losses as well as public.  But it’s had its fair share of sunshine and sweetness -  this is a world full of good people too and you're the proof!  That sounds so cheesy, but it's genuinely heartening to know so many views and sentiments are common amongst us here.  I think we just don’t hear so much about the nice stuff because it’s going on all the time quietly in the background.  All those small, unselfish acts of kindness by friends and strangers don’t make the news, but I reckon that’s a good thing because it confirms that they’re simply the norm, not the exception.

Anyway you have to keep walking the path, don’t you?  – on a Summer’s day there might even be a cream tea served by a comely wench in Tudor costume at the end of this one* by the way (please form an orderly queue).   Although, to be honest, I turned around halfway yesterday when, thinking I was alone, I suddenly saw three shady hooded figures emerging eerily from the misty distance and got spooked.... 

So - a very 'Happy (and hopeful) New Year!' to you - and thank you to everyone for walking with me through this one.

* The manor house is open to the public for historical recreation events in case you were wondering!