Happy New Year

The working day is over, the shop is closed for the next three days and we are all set to see the new year in, so now is the time when thoughts turn to the previous twelve months - important events, life changes, new friendships etc. The biggest of my life changes was leaving my teaching job. For several months I had been commuting from North Wales to Liverpool each day, leaving home at 6.30. Now I struggle to get up at 7.30 and wonder how I ever managed it! I grabbed the chance of a redundancy package with both hands and have never regretted the decision for a moment. I have blogged at length about my disillusionment about teaching these days, so suffice it to say that I do not miss it. The best I could say is that I miss the job as it used to be but not as it has become.
My new job, on the other hand, in I.T. retail (Keith's shop, but it sounds better!) is great. I am really enjoying it, learning new things every day and only rarely do I feel compelled to don my 'deputy head' persona when dealing with awkward customers!

My counselling course is also a source of great enjoyment and, hopefully, will lead to a new career when I have done the diploma in two years time.

This year also saw my introduction to the world of blogging. I'm not even sure how I got into it but I do know that back in May, I launched a basic website, courtesy of Freeserve, as it then was and from there, I wandered into blogs. I remember discovering Gemmak through her website and she was to become my first 'blog friend' but then there was Maggie, Dale, Linda, Snowbabies, Michelle, Sue, Terri, Elspeth and many more - see my blogroll for the full list. I had no idea, when I began blogging, that I would get to know so many great people. Happy New Year to you all and many more blog-days to come, I hope.

And then there was NaNoWriMo. Maggie and I both managed to finish our works of art - 50,000 words written in one short month - who would have thought it? I certainly wouldn't have had time to do that if I was still teaching!

So, all in all, a good year and let's hope that next year is good too - for all of us. Bless you all!