Happy New Year for 2011 from JMB and Miss Moggs

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

MAY 2011 BRING YOU ALL THAT YOU WISH
BE HEALTHY AND HAPPY!

And so ends 2010, the fourth year of this blog, and what I have previously called my annus horribilis. Posting has been very sparse here over this past year as I have undergone various treatments for Thyroid cancer, a disease so curable in younger people but far more deadly for the age challenged. Thus it required an all out attack with all the weapons available and it seemed never ending as one treatment followed another. But it did finally conclude and I am now considering myself fully cured, although still enduring some of the side effects of radiation. No, while stronger, my voice has not returned and it's still a cross between Lauren Bacall and a man who smokes 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I'm beginning to believe it will be permanently thus. Sighs.

I say this every year and it still remains so true I'm will repeat it. You, my blog friends, have all enriched my life in so many ways. You've challenged my mind with your posts, you've helped me with my tech problems, you've taught me so much about your different worlds, you've entertained me with your humour. Some of you have shared your poetry and stories and your beautiful paintings and photographs. You've welcomed me into your lives and shared your innermost thoughts and I am grateful to each and every one of you.

I wish you all health, happiness and prosperity for 2011, may it be infinitely better than 2010 and being half Scottish, I'll close with the words of Rabbie Burns in Auld Lang Syne and make a toast (non-alcoholic, of course) to you all.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right guid willy waught,
For auld lang syne.

or for the linguistically challenged English speakers

And there is a hand, my trusty friend!
And give me a hand of yours!
And we will take a right good-will drink,
For old long past.

Eddi Reader, Scottish singer/songwriter, in a very different version of Auld Lang Syne

NB: Words and translation from the World Burns Club