The New Year

Well, it's now the second day into the New Year. Our festivities are
slowly winding down, though today we hosted a large family get-together
at our house. It was lovely to see everyone who came, but it was fairly
hard work getting ready for the occasion and clearing-up during and
afterwards.

Our daughter L and her two girls have been with us for about two weeks,
and will be setting off for home this coming Thursday evening. The girls
are getting rather home-sick and are missing their dad (who went back
home 4 days ago). I've been helping out as child entertainer, alternating
between being Mr Greedy (who occasionally makes out that he's going to
eat their food / sweets, and gets banished to the naughty-step) and the
dastardly Tickle Monster, who chases them around our rooms … good fun.

It's time to mention my New Year's resolutions – my good intentions for
the coming year. I've been reading one newspaper columnist today (in the I),
who thinks that we should be making positive resolutions rather than
negative ones (such as giving up chocolate or alcohol). Her positive ones
were all about self-improvement – educating oneself, rather than having fun,
which is what Mrs C wishes to have more of.

One of my aims is to take my electric guitar playing up to a much
higher level, to that of the late Gary Moore – playing and singing the Blues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=4O_YMLDvvnw
I really enjoy playing and singing along with my two pals, B and S, and
wish to get up to their standard of playing.

I also intend resurrecting my interest in family history this year. Mrs C's
mum is now 91, and has a vast knowledge of her generation and two
generations of folk before that. It's the stories of how these people led
their lives, which is what I'm particularly interested in. I'm not
interested in just collecting names and dates, which I think is rather
like train-spotting.

On the negative side (though some might say positive side, depending on
what you think about computers), I will be reducing my website work …
stopping work on two of my websites. I've been thinking about the huge
variety of activities my friend B does … a bit of website work for himself
and a folk-singer friend, playing & teaching guitar, wood-turning &
guitar-making, speciality bread-making, and lots of outdoor activities as
well, whereas I'm spending more and more time looking at a computer
screen.

Photography is now my main hobby, which I will continue for the time
being, while I have such a brilliant mentor and such lovely grandchildren
to photograph.

Also, Mrs C has a long list of outstanding jobs for me to do inside the
house … well there's no end to the amount of painting that has to be done,
and bits and bobs that need fixing... and if I don't do it, then Mrs C will be
paying other people to do the work (she's got no reservations about that).
You will be no doubt familiar with all this yourself.