Happy New Year to all my readers!

I don’t generally get too excited about Year’s Eve; I’m not a party animal and I prefer to spend my New Year fairly quietly, my choice being a meal and a film at the cinema with my hubby then home to bed. In fact, I’m ashamed to say I’m usually fast asleep by the turn of midnight.

I do, however, like to reflect on the year that has passed and the year to come. But last year, not so much. I lost my mum on New Year’s Eve last year. So being forced into a new year without my mother was painful and it must have been well into the year before I would admit that time had actually moved on. I was very close to my mum, we were like best friends, sisters. I knew every memory in her head, I knew what she was going to say before she even said it. We used to laugh together all the time, we would giggle like school-girls and cry like babies over sentimental stuff.

So the whole of last year, 2013, was difficult for me. I did all the normal things but I was lost inside. I didn’t really know who I was any more. Of course the one wonderful thing that came from last year was that my first book, my debut novel, ‘Bird Without Wings’, was published. I do wish my mum was here to see that, I think she would have been proud.

So turning the corner into 2014 is a very therapeutic for me. I did attempt to send a ‘wishing lantern’ into the sky last night, with the idea of sending it up to heaven for my mum. To let her know I haven’t forgotten. Never will, in fact.

It seemed like a perfect evening for a sky lantern, very dark cloudless sky and very little breeze. But after standing in the garden holding this paper thing in the air, striking half a box of matches in an attempt to set light to it, we realised it wasn’t going to happen. Hopefully nobody saw us out there, me in my Tigger onesey (we won’t dwell on that, suffice to say it’s not a good look on a middle-aged woman) and hubby in his pyjamas and slippers. And then it started to rain, just a little bit, there was much frantic striking of matches to get the thing into the sky before it got wet. The final straw was when a huge tear appeared in the lantern. So that was that. So the garden sheds in Merseyside last night were safe from being ignited by a wayward sky lantern.

So it’s 2014, a fresh New Year. This is the year I have to find myself again, time to move on and remember that although we do lose people along the way, they never leave us whilst we have love in our hearts for them. You really don’t need a sky lantern.

So here’s to 2014 – hopefully a good year for everybody! Me? I have two books which I am hoping to finish this year. The sequel to Bird Without Wings, and another, very different, book. So 2014? An exciting year, hopefully. I can’t wait!