When I was much younger, I bought into the hype of New Year’s Eve lock, stock and barrel. It felt like something of a miracle that I could put all the problems, failures and stresses of the old year behind me and throw myself optimistically into what seemed the bright golden glow of one that was sure to bring wonderful things.

In those days, if I wasn’t invited to a New Year’s Eve party, preferably several, it felt like the most ignominious social failure. One memorable year I tagged along with a friend of far greater social chutzpah than me. Beginning at around nine o’clock we hit the first party and barely had I managed to score a drink than my friend was hustling me out of there and on to the next. From then on, we bounded from one party to another, hardly pausing long enough to toast the stroke of midnight when it came, and were still going, albeit more dazedly, well into the small hours. They hadn’t yet invented the term FOMO, but that summed up the relentless peregrinations of the night. It wasn’t until we washed up at a very partied-out party where only the straggling dregs of what might have been an impressive guest list remained, surrounded by empty bottles and other unidentifiable debris, that we gave up and went home. Suffice to say the New Year’s Day that dawned that year was neither glowing, bright or golden. My major beef at the time, I recall, was that at one of the parties, I’d just started talking to a very cute guy who gave every indication that the feeling was mutual, when my mad socialite friend dragged me away kicking and screaming to other places where cute guys had either been snapped up already or had turned into pumpkins.

In later years I went to the opposite extreme, going to bed long before midnight grumpily mumbling about it’s just another day and refusing to mark the occasion in any way other than by chucking out the old calendar and putting up a new one.

Now I’ve found a kind of equilibrium. While I acknowledge how infectious the symbolism of a new year can be, in inspiring us to think we’ll throw off the bad habits and negative baggage of the old and stride confidently unencumbered into the new, I know it’s only the numbers that change. The world will still be in the same parlous mess on the 1^{st of} January as it was on the 31^st December. Leopards don’t change their spots at the stroke of midnight, or perhaps ever.

Nevertheless, beginnings do precipitate positive thinking, if not for the fate of the world, at least on a personal level. There’s the uncharted territory of 365 days of opportunities to learn from past mistakes and try even harder to make our lives something to be proud of. And for never giving up, whatever crap the old or the new year sees fit to throw at us.

And while 2025 threw plenty of curve balls (crap) at me, I fared far better than many. While sadly I lost both Bea and Ollie, my foster kid border terriers who I walked and dog sat for the best part of five years and loved devotedly, my precious Toby is still with me, defying his cancer diagnosis of two years ago, and lighting up my life every time I catch sight of his whiskery little face. 

As an aside, having been weighed down ever since that diagnosis by what’s termed “anticipatory grief” (which in no way captures the intensity of the anxiety involved), I recently read with interest an academic report entitled “Grieving the Loss of a Pet“. For those of you, who, like me, have made their pets beloved necessities of their lives, this report makes clear that the grief we experience when they die can be equally as profound (and valid) as when we lose a human loved one.

This year I’ve expended a lot of energy (domestic distractions aside) in trying to resurrect a long-term writing project which I can now say has graduated from a fog of unformed ideas to a work in progress. The way ahead will continue to be uphill and winding but there’s an end in there somewhere. There has to be! Having read my way through 140-odd books this year, the one thing that stands out is how many mediocre books get raved about while other great ones go virtually unnoticed. Not saying mine will be in the latter category, but … just saying.

Otherwise, for a woman of my years, I’m holding together okay with a little help from the medical profession and the wonders of modern pharmacopeia. There’s plenty of room for a concerted drive towards a fitter body and a better diet, but self-discipline works better than a raft of rash resolutions, so I’m working on strengthening that muscle first. 

Today, without the benefit of booze or fireworks, I celebrate the chance to look towards a new horizon. With the dawn of each new day, there’s another chance to try and do it right. When you get to my age, you become painfully conscious that new years and even new days aren’t a given. They’re a gift. Of all those who won’t be seeing in 2026 this year, there were some I knew whose leaving has left a hole in my life. The dubious privilege of being human is knowing that the final farewell is inevitable but totally arbitrary in terms of when, where or how. The sorrow of losing loved ones, either human or animal, is grief like no other, but it can be mitigated if we acknowledge it as a wakeup call. So long as we’re here, we have time to fulfil our dreams, to pursue our passions, to hold more strongly to our principles, and to learn more about how to survive this troubled world.

So, while the strains of Auld Lang Syne ring out, the millions of dollars in fireworks go up in smoke, the champagne flows, and wild resolutions are made, I wish everyone a new year of peace, fulfilment, cheer, love, good friendship and moving closer to your dreams whatever they are.