And that's it for 2017

A good year I think.

And lots of treats yep to round it off with. Just around me there is loot from various places :

Green and Blacks mini-chocolates which I'm working my way through;
Half a bag of tasty strawberry bonbons - love these;
Half a bag of rock hard strawberry bonbons - not so much of a fan of these;
Remnants of dark chocolate digestives - won't last long;
3 blocks of pre-Brexit Toblerone - possibly my favourite chocolate;

And a few more treats too. They last a while because I've been doing better at rationing them out. (Should probably check my weight sometime - oops !)

A good year for me, although that's balanced by things going on with family at the moment which aren't for here. I am worried about them though.

The condition of my outsides has improved a lot and that's dominated my thoughts over the last few years. There's been significant improvement over the last few months, although it isn't actually fixed yet it does seem like it's moved into a healing mode. I have to help it out there though by .... not helping it out. It seems to have moved into a mode where it's getting better on its own, with interference making it worse.

Encouraging signs but still some way to go before I'm all better. I won't be playing cricket again any time soon though.

That's related to something I've come to realise over the past few weeks/months. I gave up the cricket due to a combination of two factors :

1 - My knees and outsides were too torn up to play and this got worse over the year or so after as well as my legs swelled up to scary levels.
2 - I thought my reactions had badly dulled with age ... but this looks like it was the after effects of a concussion that may have taken a few years to subside.

My first concussion was bad enough, it severely damaged my memory and I still feel the effects of that with slight difficulty in forming memories since then. I still have near perfect recall of events before then, although it does sometimes take a little effort to dredge up those memories. The second concussion affected my reactions though, adding a lag into what my brain was trying to do. That manifested in delayed reactions and I think it was affecting my judgment of speed while driving too.

It wasn't as far as me being unsafe (except on the cricket field) but it definitely shakes your personal confidence to know that something's very not right. Oh and even if my outsides do heal up in time for the season, my insides are now too battered to let me enjoy playing.

Haha, this was supposed to be a bit of a review of the year post, instead of a look back on stuff that's held me back. I think I have an appropriate picture :

Maybe not that one.

That's not it either although I think I have some nuts around.

There we go.

One reason this has been a much better year for me is the people around me. Confidence is up on last year and I need other people to give me that confidence. I am a critic of myself and it takes other people to remind me that I do have certain talents. Like the writing here, the writing of book that needs to happen sometime, the artist creative stuff where people seem to like the pictures I publish and modifications of pictures that I unleash on an unsuspecting world.

Yeah.

I've had a fun year on my own and while sharing that fun with other people. I've been shying away from the toxic ones and embracing those who are just amazing people. I'm being led by my own feelings instead of being dominated by others.

I'm happy with how things are going.

I will miss a few people though and there are too many of those to mention. (No it's actually because if I mention some, I will feel really guilty when I realise I've forgotten some very important people).

The important thing is though - have a great new year. May it be a fantastic prelude into an excellent 2018.

And I promise to post a little more too. After having some fallow weeks, I've enjoyed the daily nonsense that came out of the Advent posts. They were definitely complete randomness where I never knew what would emerge even 1 minute before I started typing but I enjoyed writing them hugely.

I need a similar meme for 2018 ....

HAPPY NEW YEAR !