Happy New Year!
That’s how it begins, isn’t it? A traditional greeting and resolutions that are will intentioned but usually die a death by the third month?
I am not making a resolution this year. Not specific ones. Of course, I will go along with the standard ‘get fitter, eat more healthy food, lose a bit of weight’ type fare, but I can’t be bothered with specifics.
The world is in such a bad place that it seems almost impossible to plan for anything specific when there is a pandemic that refuses to go away, flu is everywhere, people are depressed and fed up and the future seems a little dark and foreboding rather than bright and sunny. And this weather hasn’t helped.
I think, bar one day, we’ve had nine days of rain, at times torrential, accompanied by gusty winds. I know it’s winter but it’s darned depressing having to keep the lights on all day because it is so dark whilst worrying about the energy cost at the same time.
The country is in a mess. Strikes everywhere, cost of living crisis, unnecessary deaths due to hospitals overflowing, families not seeing one another because the trains aren’t running and politicians conspicuous by their absence. No wonder people are so fed up with everything when nothing is working and the poor are getting poorer whilst the rich, inevitably, get much richer. I don’t mind rich people being rich but when they take advantage of so much corruption and cronyism to make themselves so much better off, it does stick in the craw somewhat.
So here is to 2023. Here is to another year that, like 2022, I hope will be better than the year before. I hope it is good for you and your families and friends and that, at the end of it, you can look back on it with a fondness and thnk ‘Yeah, something good DID happen’.
So, to you all, Happy New Year!
PiecesOfPatrick 