New year, new beginnings

Happy New Year lovelies! What a treat it was to wake up to beautiful sunshine on new years day. I was rather unprepared for it when I pulled back the curtain given the drenching we've been given in the West Country the past few weeks. The bedroom flooded with light and I thought, this is going to be a good year.

Our New Year celebrations were much the same as every other year… takeaway, arguing over a game of scrabble (followed by a game of rude-word-only scrabble to ease the tension), too much bubbly and watching the fireworks on telly before stumbling up to bed. Our annual New Year's Eve walk was rained off so I wasn't able to take my camera out to capture our beautiful countryside like I have on previous years. I've been desperate to recapture the same frosty, wintery scenes I took on a Cotswolds walk on New Years Eve a few years ago:

 

Many people start the year saying their only resolution is not to have any because they're pointless. Well, I LOVE making new years resolutions. To me, it's chance to start over, to put bad habits and unpleasantries behind you, and open your mind and write a new chapter. It doesn't matter if I buckle and eat a biscuit within the first day (which I did… all of the biscuits. And the chocolates. And the twiglets). What matters is looking forwards, making achievable plans, making unachievable ones because it's fun, and embracing new experiences.

I've lots to do on my list for 2013, including:

• Finish my book proposal

• Polish chunks of my manuscript and search for an agent

• Finish the comedy script I started last year and submit it

• Include more writing in my craft and design work

• Try more illustration

• Take more photographs

• Laugh more

• Find my own voice

Let's hope we all have a very creative, happy and healthy New Year full of love and warmth... and really funny things to keep us smiling.