What's around the corner?

Happy New Year to All!

I am absolutely buzzing with excitement today. I have read so many damning articles about the concept of 'New Year' over the past few days and I'm sorry, but I love it; I love the tradition that is New Year. Sometimes I feel that I need a defined moment in time when I can reflect, assess and adjust. I can shake myself off, dust away the cobwebs and energise. I want to be told that this is the time to take a good, hard look at myself and decide where there are changes that need to be made. I actually enjoy setting myself aims and objectives and I accept that these may need to change and I won't feel a failure if they aren't all achieved. The whole concept of new beginnings is exciting for me; not because the old was bad, far from it, but because you can keep evaluating your life and making the good even better.

We had a very sober New Year's Eve. Angus was working so Coco and I stayed on the boat (I was actually extremely excited about a night on the boat!). I haven't slept in a top bunk for years and Coco never sleeps in our bed so a top bunk and Coco cuddles all night was delicious. I am suffering a little this evening though as I was completely paranoid that she would get out of her grow-bag, crawl over my sleeping body and crash to the cabin floor from a great height. She didn't of course but although I loved our night of camping out at the boat I got very little sleep!

Once Coco was in bed, Angus and I sat and talked dreams, aspirations and goals for the coming year and our future in general. There was nothing new, it was all stuff we had discussed plenty of times before, but to have a little focus, to be able to draw on the past and plan for the future was so exciting. There is obviously so much we can't guarantee, who knows what will happen and how things will turn out but there are an awful lot of wheels in motion as we go into 2011 and if just a few of these wheels were to take us down the roads we are hoping they might then we have one massive year ahead of us!

We didn't actually make it until midnight, but that didn't matter, that really is just symbolic. We had achieved all we wanted to achieve from the ritual that is New Year's Eve; we had reminisced, we had planned and plotted and we went to bed positive, hopeful and happy (with a game of Trivial Pursuit thrown in for good measure). As I lay there and watched the reflection of the lights on the water through the porthole, the surrounding boat horns tooted to signal the coming of the New Year on the strike of twelve. Whilst listening to Angus's slow sleepy breathing coming from the bunk below, I was able to kiss Coco's soft, milky cheek and feel completely content with life and where it was heading.

Today was windy. Warm and windy. Perfect for brisk, beach walks and enough of a breeze to help really get those wheels turning!