Next! Next!

Oh, it was not so tragic
and heaven did not fall
But how much at that time
I hated being there at all, Next! Next!

"Happy Birthday to me" today, and an opportunity to reflect on progress since the annus horribilis of 2005.

I seem to have to have got my brain and body back in reasonable shape.

Concerning the cognitive function, I'm happy with what I think I reveal writing "A Welsh Born Icon". I've been doing it for a while now, and I like what I see on the odd occasion when I look back through the archives. Didn't Chesterton observe something along the lines of "saying that a man shouldn't laugh at his own jokes is like saying that an architect shouldn't pray in his own cathedral"?

Physically, training has done me a power of good. I dropped below 13 stone this week which is more than two stone off my peak. I imagine that I'll be down to my 80kg target by the time of the Swansea 10km run three months tomorrow and getting fit has done wonders for my state of mind as much as anything.

I've also kept and deepened a great relationship with my little boy, and really found out who my friends were. (Thanks if you're reading this and I know that a lot of you do.) Oh, and just to prove that I still keep the salt and vinegar handy, the exit of herself's fag hag cronies from my life has been no bad thing either.

Next year's to do list needs to be prosaic. I took some tremendous financial damage in 2005's meltdown and I imagine that if I ever recover any of those assets - not that I've even tried - it will only be pennies in the pound. And my business - while well established - has really been treading water rather than progressing while my energies and attention have been elsewhere. I need to focus on filthy lucre for a while.