It’s that time of the year when my mind slips itself off the lead and bounds along the snow-covered, hedgerow-lined fields of memories, like a mental three-year-old Dalmatian.<\/p>\n
It pokes its nose in little tumps of snow; sniffing, sneezing and snorting, it teases and playfully worries things that aren’t there.<\/p>\n
And things that are.<\/p>\n
At the moment my mind is playing around in the field that I like to call 2009.<\/p>\n
How’s it been for you?<\/p>\n
I don’t know if I’m deluding myself but I think I’d classify 2009 as ‘Not Too Bad Really’.<\/p>\n
And yet straight away I’m on the back foot, defending my performance with a concession that the planned 2009 Eventing season didn’t occur; Vin developed headshaking and that immediately killed off all prospects of competing.<\/p>\n
And I’ll defend again with the statement that after six months of looking, I found Tom and he seems to be Perfect In Every Way (to quote Mary Poppins).<\/p>\n
Except he isn’t, because I’m paying \u00a31,000 to have an 8′-fenced paddock built for him.<\/p>\n
But that’s horses, eh? Except this puts the balance in to the debit side of things.<\/p>\n
But on the plus side of the overall balance sheet, I’ve been very busy, both in my ‘day’ job and in the world of my various writing projects (reviewer, feature-writer, novelist and short-storyist).<\/p>\n
And yes, I know being very busy is brilliant, but there exists, in my head at least, a general air of dissatisfaction in this field. There’s a feeling that I could have done everything so much better, with a more qualitative attention to detail, if only I’d tried.<\/p>\n
Or had the time. And thus begins the vicious circle…<\/p>\n
[pause]<\/p>\n
The music side of things has gone brilliantly.<\/p>\n
I almost grudgingly concede this, as if I am reluctant to set the thought free because the counterbalancing thought might be too much in the negative.<\/p>\n
But really, there isn’t a counterbalancing thought. My own guitar playing has been scant, but that was never really on the radar anyway.<\/p>\n
And all things Podcasting have been excellent, the growth of our audience has been tremendous.<\/p>\n
And the web statistics indicate that the redesigned website is popular with feed-readers and googlers, and besides – and indeed over-ridingly – the Podcast is fun to produce.<\/p>\n
Recording it is never a chore and I usually start feeling a growing sense of anticipation about three days before Studio Day. It’s fun, it’s a regular weekly event and I love doing it.<\/p>\n
And, of course, as a result of producing the Podcast we have been fortunate enough to listen to some excellent musicians – and doubly fortunate to be able to go on and number some of these very talented individuals as friends.<\/p>\n
No, there’s nothing in the debit column on this one.<\/p>\n
So that’s music and horses and work and writing.<\/p>\n
[another pause]<\/p>\n
Family, at first glance, looks like it might be all debit and no credit, but that isn’t how I see it.<\/p>\n
There have been two cataclysmic events in this aspect of my life this year. Each shook my self-confidence and erased the ability to believe in myself to the point where, for a while, I didn’t really have a life, I was just going through a series of daily processes and trying to come out the other end unscathed.<\/p>\n
The earth-shattering nature of these events isn’t for public discussion, but there was a while, back in 2009, when I lost my rudder and just drifted along, buffeted by the big stormy waves.<\/p>\n
But now the rudder is back on and the big stormy waves have abated and although things are a little more choppy than they used to be, at least the water now more closely resembles a boating pond and not a Force 9 in the South Atlantic.<\/p>\n
Generally I feel positive about family; the dysfunctional relationship that separates my siblings and me is a source of amusement and not a concern. I was surprised that one of my brothers popped up and left a comment, but when I pinged the email address he’d left and found it to be a dead one, my surprise turned to much laughing out loud.<\/p>\n
The Soph and me family feels good and I am optimistic for the future.<\/p>\n
And I’m comfortable with my relationship with Soph’s family, though heaven knows what they reckon to me.<\/p>\n
So if I had to sum up the whole family thing under one heading it would probably be on the positive side of ‘Meh’.<\/p>\n
Which makes me wonder why I’ve spent so much time, this morning, thinking about the past. The deep distant past.<\/p>\n
I blame Christmas.<\/p>\n
There’s something about this ‘festive’ season that seems to encourage this free-ranging introverted retrospective; the bonkers Dalmatian looning around snowy fields metaphor is a good one. Hang on to it.<\/p>\n
I might use it again next year.<\/p>\n
2010 promises so much potential; horses, music, writing, family. But I’ve stopped banking on future events. What will be will be.<\/p>\n
And other clich\u00c3\u00a9s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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