Happy New Year to all readers of my blog. I'm thinking we are all hoping that 2010 will be different from that clunker of a year that was 2009. Things have started off in a different way for me already. The usual spam e-mails in my junk inbox contained one enterprising one that actually wished me a happy new year before going on to try and sell me something I don't want !

Unfortunately my own New Year's day plan has just gone belly up. We were supposed to be going out with my friend and assistant Bob Caddick and his wife Maggie to visit the wildfowl reserve at Welney in the fens where thousands of Bewick and Whooper swans overwinter after a long journey from Siberia. Unfortunately Suzy seems to have picked up a bug so that isn't going to happen today now. The best laid plans and all that.....

Suzy and Bob remind me that health, friends and family are the most important priorities in any year.
He had a close brush with death after contracting lymphoma but has pulled through it, thank goodness. The way he has got on with his life since then is a source of inspiration to me and as Robert Schuller the evangelist, pastor and author once said "Be hopeful, for tomorrow has never happened before."