Where have all the past years gone? asked the song writer ...  So do I.  Another year has passed, and it's somehow today the last day in January of 2016. Even more, it's a long time since I've added to this page in my web site. Strangely it's one of those things that seems to move towards the bottom of the 'to do' pile, and that pile, believe me, is considerable!

So, since October, what has happened? It's all been surprisingly trivial, but very satisfying. The usual December pre-Christmas frenzy of activity, this time lessened by the fact that instead of a huge influx of house guests, for the first time in many years we went to Canberra for a Christmas in someone else's home - to eldest daughter Felicity. Lovely to have someone else responsible for managing the daily routines, and a happy time marked by lots of wonderful food, catching up with old friends in Canberra,  a number of really good films - and, of course, lots of card-playing with eager card-shark grand-daughters. "Well, you taught us!" they say .... As I said, nothing earth-shattering in these last few months.

But a sobering time, as we attended funerals of friends of many years, with an increasing recognition of the fact that social events have moved on from the 21sts, the engagements, the marriages, the christenings, the decade birthday parties, the children's weddings ... and now we are entering the era of funerals as our most common gatherings of old friends. Sobering, indeed.

Perhaps this is is why we are seizing the day (nothing like a bit of 'carpe diem' as a motivator) and planning an imprudent but very desirable trip to South America this year. It looks wonderful, despite the shadow of falling share markets and the looming Zlika virus, and we are looking forward to it enormously - that's if we ever get through the morass of visa applications that seem to be required for every area our APT travel will take us. So we struggle with forms for Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador in an increasing recognition that we are going to be covering a lot of territory.

For me, one of the anticipated pleasures is the writing. I'll try to keep to my usual pattern of a poem a day, knowing that there's great satisfaction when, on return, David puts together my poems and photos in a book that becomes a treasured record of our time away. That will compensate for the very little bit of writing I've done in these last few months - a handful of poems, and that's been it. Not good, and it leaves me feeling very empty in spite of all life's other satisfactions. That will change ...