Happy New Year!

At the end of the first full year for both my blog and my website, a quick review of the visitor statistics reveals some rather interesting facts.

The website has been host to visitors from 45 different countries, including Azerbaijan, South Korea and Ukraine! They have been lead there by a wide variety of search terms. The most common of these have all included some variation on my own name or Uncle Alonzo's, but prizes for the most bizarre must surely go to "chocolate fireworks", "Paul Cookson poetry about furniture" and "once again many thanks for the lovely afternoon evenning endeed" (sic)! You can decide for yourself which one deserves first place!

This blog has been visited by the inhabitants of 27 assorted countries, including Croatia, Finland and Taiwan. Among the strangest search terms to bring them here were "shivery chills", "woodlice as medical cure" and "Stacey Farquharson". I assume that the first two searches would have lead to last February's post on Modern Marvels & Curious Cures, while Stacey F would have linked to January's What's in a Name. A rather odd thought, since I employed the two names together in that post specifically because I imagined that no-one else would ever do so! It certainly is a funny old world.

Since I appear to be revisiting old posts with a vengeance today, I'll seize the moment and remind you of just one more: My Child, I Recycled. Once again the Woodland Trust is eager to encourage the recycling of old Christmas cards and the subsequent planting of new trees. Please support them if you can.


And there it was - my first post of 2009. There may have been some (extremely) quiet times, but the blog has survived its first year, which, if I'm honest, is more than I thought it might when I began.

So here's to the next year and to a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2009 for everyone! Cheers!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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...