My Child, I Recycled

Following on from my last post about packing away Christmas decorations, if anyone is wondering what to do with all the Christmas cards that they have just taken down, you might like to have a look at the card recycling page on the Woodland Trust website. They are hoping to encourage people in the UK to recycle a massive 100 million cards this year, between Jan 2nd – 31st. It's easy to do – just take them along to your nearest Tesco, WHSmith, Marks & Spencer or TK Maxx and then bask in the knowledge that a) you have avoided committing a Crime Against the Environment by simply throwing them away, b) you have contributed to the planting of 24,000 new trees, and, finally, c) when, in years to come, your small offspring, their innocent eyes wide and shining, stare up at you and ask, 'What did you do to help prevent global warming, Mummy/Daddy/additional parent or guardian of indeterminate gender?', you will be able to say happily, 'I recycled with the best of them, my child, I recycled.' Make this heartwarming vision a reality by visiting www.woodland-trust.org.uk/cards

This first precious week of January is almost over and I feel as though I’m already behind. Behind with what? I hear no one in particular ask. With all the things that I didn’t get done before the end of 2007 and yet promised myself I would do before Real Life begins again on Monday.

If I'm honest, this is not a new experience. I always look at this first week of January as an opportunity to set myself up for the year ahead, a time in which to try and do everything that I planned to do in the week after Christmas, but which in reality I found myself too full of turkey and mince pies and too drawn to the (mostly terrible – what is wrong with me?!) festive television schedule to attempt. I know that once I get past Twelfth Night it's time to get on with the serious stuff – to work on new writing, edit the old pieces, put together some submissions to publishers and agents, firm up tentative invitations for school visits or bookshop signings, start work on the next Shadow Road production etc, etc. The list goes on, as I’m sure it does for everyone else as well, and even thinking about it intimidates me.

So I won’t. At least, not yet...