Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

New Year's Eve, traditionally a time to look back at the year just gone and forward at the one about to start.

So, 2007.

An average year over all, I think, in so far as good stuff balanced out the bad stuff, but the difference was the extremes at either end compared with usual. The end of February saw the birth of my great niece, Courtney. That was balanced a week later by the death of my father in a somewhat sudden and unexpected fashion only tangentially related to the ailments that had seen him put into a nursing home.

I started the year at work with the suggestion that I might be the person to keep the Monster in check as a member of her Private Office. I finished the year stressed out and ready to strangle her on sight. Had I taken the job in Private Office I should have been doing a life stretch by now and the good burghers of her constituency would have had a by-election.

March was a rough month, what with the funeral and all. It's thirty years since my grandparents died, and twenty since my last funeral. None of the others were as traumatic. I was young enough to sail through my grandparents' funerals relatively unscathed, despite being close to them, and distant enough from my uncle to cope. Dad's funeral was of an entirely different magnitude.

The following month I met up with an old school friend (telemeister) in person for the first time in nigh on thirty years too, to find pleasantly that apart from expanding waist and receding hair lines that very little had changed in the intervening time. Moreover, despite living in Californie for 17 years, there is only the vaguest hint of a Yankee twang to his voice.

Beyond these events, I'm not sure much else has happened. A number of celebrities have shuffled off this mortal coil as in every year, (the saddest loss to my mind being Ian Wallace), and one of my oldest online friends died. I stopped smoking at the beginning of May and have not yet - so far - relapsed, though from time to time I really, really feel like a cigarette. Still, the signs are hopeful. It's been nearly eight months, now.

Furtle lost her Nan, which was sad as they were very close and that scraped the top off my own slow-healing scab.

I guess now that I come to write it all down, the poor bits of 2007 somewhat outweigh the good bits. But I am constantly reminded that I am operating from a higher level of contentment and general happiness than a couple of years ago. Which reminds me, she will be back from Egypt later today so I have to go and find something for dinner. A nice steak, perhaps...

So, what can we expect from 2008?

Assuming Pakistan doesn't descend into civil war and some tosser set off a nuke on the subcontinent, personally I am hoping for a quieter year with fewer negative emotional extremes. I hope to be able to go for a promotion, but time will tell. I also need to lose some weight and although I vaguely recall saying something along the same lines last year (to no effect), I shall be trying again. I want to be able to wear my leather jacket with a sweater under it and be able to button it up, all whilst breathing!

We'll see.