....and I genuinely hope that 2019 is a kind and good year for you, your family and friends.   

2018 was an `iffy` year for us.  We lost our much loved golden retriever Barney early in the year but we now have the latest in our long line of retrievers in the form of Dudley who is now eight months old and whilst still learning the trade seems to be coming along nicely.

While the world seems intent on seeing in the new year with a cacophony of fireworks, sensitive souls like Dudley just can`t understand why there are so many menacingly loud crashes, bangs and wallops so close to home.   I suspect we will have a late night nursing him through the celebratory din.  But, hey-ho it is new year after all and I guess, like Christmas, it will come and it will go like all the others.

The advent of Dudley meant that our holiday jaunts were restricted to just two in the year - one in April to Padstow not long after we had lost Barney, so it was not the same walking the Cornish cliffs without his company.  The second was to the New Forest in June, at the end of which we picked Dudley up from the breeder and brought him home.  

Get tonight over with and we can start again with a new year which, all being well, will bring my 80th birthday and no doubt another anxious, stressful time as the Saints, true to form, battle once more against relegation.   But there is summer to look forward to - long, warm sunny days, the cricket world cup and hopefully the occasional visit to Canterbury to see how Kent fare in the first division of the county championship. Simple pleasures are often the best ones.

All good wishes for 2019.  See you next year. Possibly.