A very Happy New Year to you all for 2024!!!
As 2023 has now drawn to a close, I thought I’d take a look back on how the year panned out for me and my family!
It’s been a BIG year with lots of milestone dates in my daughter’s house this year. It started out with Dannii reaching 40 on January 8th. Her eldest, Jamie was 21 on 23rd August, Kyle became 18 on 19th October, Kacey got to be a teenager (13) on 24th Feb and little Brooke was 5 on 21st October. Throughout the year, Kyle passed his driving test (first attempt) in May, Brooke started school in September and finally, Jamie and his partner, Vicky got engaged on Christmas Day. There was candles, 100 red balloons and red rose petals. He even went down on one knee in front of all the family! And...she said YES amidst all her tears of happiness. But, the biggest event by far was Jamie and Vicky’s daughter, Talia, being born on 30th August making Dannii a Nana at 40 years old, and me a great Nana!!
Stu’s household has been a little quieter this year, though he’s busy with work most of the time they took quite a few nice breaks away. Stuey and Kate competed in Total Warrior with Stu doing his fastest time and best position ever. Imogen completed her first Junior Warrior and thoroughly enjoyed it. Kate had her hair shaved off in November to raise funds for MacMillan nurses. A very brave thing to do for most women and I totally admire her for doing this for such a worthy cause!! Well done, Kate!
As for me...well, I battled through the year with the constant nerve pain in my left leg. In August I called it a day on employment for good and retired! After having not done anything remotely productive for the last 2/3 years, I finally got around to re-releasing my trilogy with new titles and covers, which I'd been promising myself I would do for ages. I also dived straight back into the writing cave and currently have three or four new projects on the go, though I'm concentrating on one in particular. Back in July, I adopted little Ginny the kitten and found out later that she’d been born on my birthday, 16th May! It was meant to be…my first time of having three fur babies! Thankfully, she is getting on great with Harry and Doris, though she is capable of annoying them both at times.
Retirement is great. I can do whatever I want when I want. I can write as much as I like and it's more of a pleasure now that I'm not working full-time hours and coming home too tired to think let alone write. A new thing too is meeting up with Viv and Angela more regularly and we now do a 'ladies who lunch' day once a week, on whichever day Viv is free. She still works and she does permanent nights as a carer, but only four nights a week so we have to choose a day when she is not sleeping after a night shift! We vary where we go to eat and shop so that it doesn't become boring. And of course, being ladies, there is usually plenty of chit-chat as well as dining and shopping!!! LOL!
Anyway, enough of that! It just remains to wish each and every one of you, a very Happy and Prosperous New Year for 2024 with good health thrown in there. Be happy, and make others happy too! Smile - make someone's day. If everyone did that it would make the world a better place!
Lots of love and cheers to you all!
XXX