A retrospective on 2012, with pictures. Nice ones.

2012.  For some, just a collision of appealingly bendy numbers with a nice little straight line in for emphasis.  If this is how you feel about 2012, then may I suggest cryogenic suspension, because you are really going to love 3030.  But for others, by which I mean me, because, despite my many qualifications (I am also allowed to use a chainsaw, handle a bat, milk a cow and I have a certificate that says I can swim the length of a swimming baths, but don't hold me to that one), I am not qualified to speak for anyone else, it was a year.

A year of stuff.  A year in which I won some awards that look like this -

only with more dust.  My wonderful publishers Choc Lit published my book that looks like this -

and my wonderfully chucklesome grandson, Phoenix James, made his arrival into the world.  He, his parents and his aunts and uncle (that being my children, in case you'd got confused and had to resort to doing diagrams on the back of an envelope) spent Christmas chez moi, where I, and the increasingly mysterious Mr Q, entertained them with gifts, a series of inedible nibbles and Doctor Who.

We also went for walks, accompanied by Phoenix and his mum Becci and dad, Tom.  Here, Becci is indicating to me how big my bottom looks, when viewed from behind, Phoenix is admiring any scenery which does not contain my bottom, and Tom is trying to see out from underneath his hat.


And now that year is over, well nearly.  It is being carried to its end, borne on a litter of crumpled wrapping paper, the spat-out nuts from Quality Street, gnarly old ends of cheese and more pine needles than you could swear one tree could carry, and I find myself infused with a kind of ennuie.  You see, last year - well, it's still this year really, but it isn't looking at all well, and may not make it to the end of the week - was so successful, so damned fantastic and filled with wonderfulness and gorgeosity and amazing new happenings...how can 2013 possibly compete?  How is it not going to come off looking a bit sad and saggy in comparison to a year that held Olympics, awards and new arrivals?

I considered the option of spending 2013 sulking, kicking table-legs and muttering "whatevah" when asked to do something, although I didn't rule out stamping upstairs, slamming some doors and refusing to tidy my room.  But then I went on a walk and looked at scenery like this -

all right, so we couldn't get the dog-kite to take off, but even so, it was lovely.  And I realised that, just because 2012 was an unsurmountably fantastic year, one which will never be bettered (unless someone actually does manage to dip Tony Robinson in caramel and gift wrap him), that doesn't mean that 2013 will not have its own spectacularness!

So, dear blog-reader (or, in reality, more likely someone who googled 'rubber knickers' and ended up here by mistake, looking through my pictures in search of something a little more...ahem...adult), those of you who have been following my adventures thus far - stay tuned!  For I can feel it in my water that 2013 will offer us yet more adventures, and I take this opportunity to thank you for your strong-stomached attendance upon this blog these many past months (except you with the rubber pant fixation), and to wish you

                                                            HAPPY NEW YEAR!