I spent last night in the company of a few good friends, eating excellent food, drinking very good wine, with cats about and a lovely fire in the fireplace, and it was Very Good Indeed. If one takes the first minute of the new calendar year as an augury of sorts for the coming year as a whole, then I will be laughing and comfortable and thankful for the good things in life in 2009. And that’s just fine with me.

In his wishes for the new year Neil Gaiman said something wonderful and beautiful and inspirational, and it is worth quoting here:

…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

A good rule of thumb for this and every year: Be wise. Be kind. Love. Make things. And always, always dream big.