Happy almost new year!

No, surely you jest, it can’t possibly be the 11th of January already.
It can?
Oh.
Well I hope you all had a simply marvellous Christmas, and New Year, and *cough* a thoroughly energetic and inspired start to 2007. I know I have. I successfully introduced Christmas pudding to the Swiss in-laws; I learned to ski (scary!); and now I’m back with my head so bursting with ideas, I can barely sit still. That might be why it’s taken me so long to get back to the blog.
I love New Year. Always have. I know, I know, it’s thoroughly artificial and all, you may as well pick any day of the calendar for a new start; but there’s something marvellous about those fresh blank pages in the diary. It helps that for much of my life, different phases have roughly coincided with different calendar years, so I have lots of associations of change and fresh new things when January rolls around. (And I love change. Thrive on it.) And of course, the days between Christmas and 1 January are generally pretty quiet; so it comes naturally to reflect on the year behind, to crystallise what you want from the year ahead, and whether you call them goals, resolutions or plans, to form some good intentions as to how you’re going to get it.
My goals for this year revolve around balance. How to keep improving Purlescence, while preserving some personal and social life. How to balance quiet time with seeing friends — they’ve been sorely neglected of late. When to say yes, when to say no. How to look after my time, my home, my body. How to be more productive, more disciplined, and have more fun. It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? But I have a fairly clear idea of what I need to do. I think I can handle it.
And I have knitting goals too, of course. Socks is one item high on the list. For the others — well, you’ll just have to wait and see.
Here’s to a gloriously creative, creatively organised 2007. Cheers!