On the subject of big plans for next year, and so on, there will be no review of the year on this site. This is not a football match, and I’m afraid I stubbornly refuse to put together an edited highlights package. Bollocks, quite frankly, to that.

If you’ve been reading throughout 2001, you’ll already know what has happened - the highs, the lows, the various dramas and lulls.

If you’ve come to the site recently, then you can always wrap up warm in front of your computer and delve into the archives which will explain far more than any summation I could give.

This year has been so full and rich, it deserves the long-winded version, I think, rather than a greatest hits parade version. I’ll leave that sort of thing to the newspapers and TV production companies, who seem to thrive on it at this time of year.

(Tangent: last night I caught the top 100TV moments of the year. All sorts of things were covered, from sport to politics (and both, when Prescott threw his famous punch), but interestingly, there wasn’t even the tiniest mention of the one event which had everyone I know, everyone I came into contact with, glued to their screens for long disbelieving minutes, which grew into hours. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Not a TV moment, apparently).

The exception to the longhand rule, of course, is the mayfly project, which is a tidy way to sum up 365 days, in case you are pressed for time.

So we tumble towards 2002. I, privately, am tumbling instead towards Thursday.

And no, I won’t be making any resolutions this year - because I never do. I’m not waiting for midnight to make changes in my life - because I think that I am constantly changing, and I hope I am constantly moving, improving. I am a work in progress, a life, unfolding.

I hope I never need a calendar to hang my promises on - I don’t make promises to myself or others, resolutions, because I feel I have to - I make them because I mean them, whenever they happen to crop up during the turning of the year.

Warm wishes to all for the new year, and here’s hoping for for a peaceful, fruitful, cheerful (meaning health as well as happiness), loveful (I don’t care if it’s not a word; it is now) 2002.

We deserve it. We all deserve it.

Update, later:
The moon on the ocean is unbelievably beautiful. The night is still and cold.

Nothing else matters.

Happy new year.