Happy New Year.  It has been a strange one but I hope this cheers you up a bit.  January can be the best month of the year because The January Challenge lifts the spirit!

We have curated a creative challenge per day.  There are tens of thousands of participants right now.

https://twitter.com/64M_Artists/status/1344915062679625728

Todays challenge (Monday)  was to write an internal weather forecast.

Day 4 #TheJanuaryChallenge Internal Weather Report – eat your heart out @lemnsissay #64millionartists @Iain_caldwell and forgive me @sarahdavywrites pic.twitter.com/0rBUcsqVDV

— Ruth Jackson (@JacksonRuth_) January 4, 2021

And on Sunday the challenge was to find love out of materials and things.

#TheJanuaryChallenge pic.twitter.com/D9u11VX54z

— Lesley (@Sphynxthinker) January 3, 2021

Experience the wave of creativity every day. Join in! #64millionartists #Thejanuarychallenge.

@64M_Artists #TheJanuaryChallenge @MakeWayMusic .
Pocket of hope.
Made for all my teacher friends worried about the year ahead. pic.twitter.com/fpf2Wjq3ZG

— jane emery (@janeemery1) January 3, 2021

On a less creative note I keep records.   I have two diaries; patchy commentary circa 1981 & 1983 and since 1985 I have yearly records of press, letters poems manuscripts, play scripts.This is a glimpse…..

And this is the baggage  I am throwing away. How much clutter do we keep? Now all I need is a shredder.

Happy New Year. Sorry if this blog is a bit boring. I write in lieu of family for the record. So I tell myself. But I am getting to a point in life where friends are losing theirs. I have begrudged them their families from very early on in my life. I am mistaken in doing so. I watched them leave school and travel away from their families. And then return. I watched them marry and saw their families gather. I watched them create children and reflect on their parents. I watched some of them divorce and re-marry. And now I watch them lose their loved ones. Sometimes it feels I’ve lived life back to front. Denying that I can’t miss what I never had. We move forward don’t we. Regardless. And COVID reminds that what I do with what I have is what matters. Memory collates regardless. We shred memories. We hold on to some.