New year, new decade, new post.

So how was it for you?

The new year, nay decade, is upon us and as we all emerge from our xmas slumber we squeak our eyes clean, survey the carnage of yesteryear and embark on all things cleansing and harmonious - no?

I'm trying not to give myself a gazillion resolutions that only add more pressure to my ever-curving shoulders. But i can't seem to help myself...

Let's go back first though... To Xmas. Something about the stressful journey home seemed to bash away at all my outer coating shell and somehow I felt very exposed and vulnerable once on Irish soil. Some deep cavern inside left me hollow, determined to see everyone and have a christmas moment with them all and somehow fill myself up. Every moment had to count as time was so precious and all I succeeded in doing was amping up my insane need for perfection at all costs.

Husband is used to this Irish merry-go-round of families and friends and whirlwind lunches, drinks, dinners, tea, cakes, go on have some more, will you stay the night, och you aren't leaving yet are you, is that what you call a drink? ways of Irish socialising. He watched me say no to well... no one... and exhaust myself. Same old same old. Mum's ex invited her into his house for the first time in 25 years on Xmas day. It was all terribly post modern and civilised. As if that wasn't enough my Dad also smoked the pipes of peace and Xmas evening ended with us all gathered around watching Sproglet kick a rugby ball with his cousins while we sipped wine and my Mother and Step-Mother traded tales of my Father. All very healing. It made me realise how far we have all come, how it is time for me to lay my ghosts to rest if they all can.

New year was wonderful. I travelled to York to see relatives and then on to old old schoolfriends for fine food and wine with their local friends. I found myself drinking tea at 11pm to wash down my friend Hannah's obscenely good chocolate pavlova. My toast to 2010 was one small glass of champagne and a sober thought of how I want 2010 to be.

I'm excited about it. There is lots of change coming and I feel energised by it. Husband and I chatted through some things - we finally had the time, the glorious breathing time, to do so. I'm leaving work a month early, to give me more time to write this darn book. I am going to birth this sucker no matter how hard it is or how long it takes me for my brain to dilate! He was supportive and understanding and something in all my pre-xmas rants hit home. I think we are both on the same wavelength at long last.

Sproglet was brilliant - a social bunny like his mother. He went from house to house, bed to bed without a whimper. At one house he claimed to be a tad scared of sleeping at the top of the house, so curled up with his wee buddy Fergus for the night - too cute. On Boxing night I hung out with my old schoolmates and their husbands, girlfriends etc and it made me wish I could do that more often. With the people with whom you have such a shorthand, where the banter flows, where 3am seems early to leave the craic at the table and where the roots you planted years ago bear fruit in all you share.

So all in all a great, if exhausting festive period. My need to cram as much in as possible to fill that hole shone through as always. Maybe I'll never change. Oh well. This year is the year to stress less and laugh more. To give up reading trash and take up a book instead. To see more of those that matter and cull those that don't. To spend more time with people in (the) flesh than on line. To fit in my size 27/28 jeans without my muffin cookin on the top. But to enjoy my muffins when I eat them all the same.

I like the sound of 2010. Stick around and we'll see how it goes. Happy new year folks!