Happy New Year One And All

Happy New Year One And All, I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year - ours was quiet which was lovely - I did get round to putting up a tree and it looked gorgeous, I baked and I made Christmas Dinner (twice) and today its my Mum's birthday so I took her a pile of gifts yesterday.  Father Christmas brought me a lovely camera which I had been wanting for months - just a little digital thing that is light and sturdy enough for me to have in my handbag and to take on rides with me when I go out with Merlin.

For the first time that I can remember we had snow over the Christmas period which was so beautiful - the first night it happened, I crept down the stairs at 3am and we've put tiny white lights on the tree outside the front of the house and I opened the front door a crack and it was all so white and beautiful and peaceful - and brrrrrrr.....COLD!!

How amazingly fast time passes - I can remember when we passed from 1999 to 2000 and how everyone was terrified that their computers were going to seize up, the internet would crash and airliners would fall from the sky...I can also remember being out on the pavement at midnight outside a friends' house, celebrating and 'bringing in the new year' and a random stranger stopped and kissed me.   I was totally bemused by that.   And now - 2010 - I am fascinated by the Edwardian period and I was thinking recently how amazed my great-grandparents would be at all the electronic wizardry we have these days - even something we now consider as basic as a digital camera - I find that period fascinating because of the huge social and

economic changes there were and also how it seemed to be the last age of innocence before the world wars came along, before a generation of young men were wiped out, even the changes from Victorian fashion to the flappers in the 1920's is an astonishing change; I find the history of the Titanic fascinating and of course we are not far off the 100 year anniversary of the sinking.

I saw a fabulous film during the Christmas period - Coco Before Chanel with Audrey Tatou - have you seen it?  How Coco Chanel began her life and how she would fit her story to the listener to get the greatest advantage out of it - well I guess to some extent we all do that.

I wonder what 2010 will bring for us all?  The adventure of a New Year, a new start and all that - I spent New Year's Eve finalising the pages for the relaunch of Tiaraonline - Mark is currently doing the finishing technical bits and hopefully I can launch in the next 24 hours - I've only been working on this for about the past 18 months! 

In the meantime, I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year - stay warm!