Not a slow motion montage of 2012.

Well, we survived Christmas, and despite consuming silly amounts of food (mainly desserts and chocolates) I have not had to buy new clothes.  This is good.

I would declare this Christmas a decent one, and I have absolutely loved being at home for an extended run of days.  It has proved to me, as if proof were needed, that I would be absolutely superb as a lottery winner.  I am a firm believer that if anyone wins enough to ensure they need never work again, and they continue working then they should be stripped of the money, and it be given to someone else, ideally me.

I don’t get this “I’d be bored if I didn’t work” thing.  I have filled every day very easily, and that is without having the luxury of endless funds with which to entertain myself and the family.  With a few million in the bank I don’t know how I’d find time to even think about my previous life where I was a slave to an alarm clock and overdraft.

Most weeks I go through the thought process, in some detail, of exactly what I would do with a sizeable lottery win.  I won’t go into the level of planning I undertake as you would think me sad(der), but whenever those balls wish to drop I am more than ready.  Are you listening Dale?

Anyway, back to xmas just gone, and as you are no doubt aware we were hosting.  The burden was lightened by everyone who came bringing with them a vital element of the meal, so really it was just about finding somewhere for every one to sit.

The day started too early, with Rebecca as ever channeling her five-year old self.  After trying to go for a quiet wee around 7.30am, I got back to bed to find a text from Rebecca asking if she could get up yet.  Knowing that Emily’s body would probably require about four more hours sleep we tried to stall her as long as possible but within minutes she was up in Emily’s room making a nuisance of herself.  Luckily Emily spared her life and we piled downstairs to open presents.

From various sources Oli had as many presents as the girls.  He liked this one a lot.

The rest of the day was a blur of gifts, family, eggnog and food…so much food.

Since Christmas Day we have waved off most of the family as they left for Florida where they are right now.  This.Is.Absolutely.Fine.  Moving on.

So thoughts now turn to the New Year, and no doubt you are already overdosed on slow motion montages of 2012, and those ever so hilarious not at all scripted panel shows where they tell us all what happened in case we’d forgotten.

As I can’t do slow motion montages, I’ll keep my review brief.  2012 was, like pretty much every year, a mixed bag of ups and downs.  It is tempting to slag off every year and say you are glad to see the back of it, but if you keep doing that all you end up is dead.

The year about to end was busy, traumatic in some ways but also included some good stuff too.  Of course us somehow managing another Florida trip was a major highlight for me, but just to prove the point about ups and downs, of course Mum’s illness preventing them coming along wasn’t great.

Louise started her nursing course in 2012, which is the realisation of a long-held ambition, and despite some real downs I have ended the year in a really good place job wise.  Incredibly after ten years in one place I have changed jobs three times this year.  The first by choice, mainly on a point of principle after how they treated a load of people who worked for me.  The second was more or less forced as the company was heading for a brick wall, and the third was flatteringly via some head hunting, but awkwardly only a few weeks after starting a new job.  I am often the first to bemoan our luck and look for the worst in a situation, but the way in which that happened, and the job and company I have now settled with was pretty much a gift from the gods.

The girls are healthy, happy (as much as teenagers can be amidst their raging hormones and mood swings) and not on drugs, dependent on alcohol or familiar to the police.  I’ll settle for that.

We also moved house in 2012.  The fact that this happened right in the middle of job move number two made the early summer probably one of the most stressful times of my life.  Having to secure a new job and deal with the inevitable nonsense of a move was not good.  Sure, people go through a lot worse, but I don’t want to repeat that thanks.

The wider world outside the Williams sanctum has crumbled to shit a little more in the past twelve months.  Financial disaster, corruption, scandal and lies have dominated the headlines.  Basically if you were on TV between 1970 and 1985 you should expect to be arrested in 2013.

So looking ahead to 2013, I expect another year of similar ups and downs.  Aside from the inevitable lottery win that is bound to come our way (isn’t it?) there won’t be a Florida holiday.  I know, I know, you won’t believe me but unless a whole heap of cash falls into our lap there is no chance.  The house is screaming at us to spend money on it, and a holiday is rightly someway behind all that in the pecking order.

In the few short months since we got here we have converted the loft, repaired the chimney, cosmetically enhanced the kitchen as best we can without a full refit, titivated Rebecca’s room and painted various bits of the bathroom.  Of course I also bled the radiators!!

The list of what we still want and need to do is longer than the list of desserts I ate on Christmas Day.

Between now and the end of the summer Emily will be doing her A levels and Rebecca her GCSEs.  The house could turn into a war zone in the battle to get them to do sufficient work and revision.  I am of course looking forward to that!

Our journey into the new year will be just Louise and I, as both the girls are out at parties, and of course the rest of the family are in bloody WDW! We intend to raise hell with a visit to the pictures and a meal in local pub.  I am the Ozzie Osbourne of the North West.  Making it to midnight is not guaranteed!

So I wish you all well for the New Year, thank you for your support and time in tolerating the trip report(s), and your continued interest in and reading of these weekly verbal vomits is astounding and appreciated in equal measure.

So there you go, probably the only retrospective of 2012 you will come across without mentioning the Olympics…oh bollocks!

Till the next time….Till the next year…..

Craig.