New Year is but a memory now

The little statue in my garden. Yes, we had snow this week.

Ah, it's over. The council have even dismantled the lovely big tree on the roundabout outside my window and I do miss the blue lights but for the rest of it I'm glad to get back to normal, if you can call a writer's life normal. I don't think there's anything normal about living alone and working alone. I've taken to talking to myself even when I'm out. I went to Tesco's a couple of days ago ( what dizzy social heights I rise to! ) and I spoke to four people and not one of them spoke back. They probably think that the woman in the purple fur coat with the strange dark hair looking like a third hand very old Louise Brooks ( film star in the days of such things ) is quite batty.

I probably am going batty. It's a case of 'when I get old' and wearing purple. My daughter had to stop me buying purple leather gloves in December to go with all the rest. I think she's probably right and I am starting to look like a large plum.

What shall I do with the next thirty years? I have no talents. Well, that's not quite true. I can milk a goat, and pluck a pheasant, gut mackerel and even use a shotgun if anybody needs a farm hand. I can play the piano ( well, I used to be able to ), I've sung in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York and driven a car through France. Isn't it odd how the strange things add up as you get older?

New Year is the time for resolutions. I'm resolved to have lots of good times. I'm going to eat dark chocolate and drink lots of wine and buy smelly cheese so that I nearly pass out when I open the fridge door. I'm going to spend lots of time with friends and go out for lunch and for dinner. I've recently begun loving coffee again after about three years of not liking it much and at the moment am going out for coffee every day and not that milky stuff, the good hard black coffee, with cream if I'm in the mood.

 I'm going to eat steak and chips and muffins with lots of butter and I've just bought some very expensive tea from Whittards ( it was half price after Christmas ). In fact this is what I did last year, now I come to think of it. And it was very good. I just need to be able to afford it so hopefully that will spur me on to be useful and not spend too much time watching old Inspector Morse's in the afternoons. I love the dark afternoons and the fire but Howard planted pots of bulbs by my front door so I'm looking forward to the spring too.

More snow this morning but it is melting fast