Christmas and New Year have always been special times for me – Christmas more than the New Year, as I have always come to view the Winter Solstice as the start of the the truly new, rather than the formal ending of the calendar’s twelve months. The solstice sees the nadir of the visible light, as the solar ‘victory’ changes the face of the year and the days begin to lengthen again. To those who live in awareness of these cycles, the Feasts of St Stephen and St John mark two very different ‘Earths’.

As children, we expect (probably too much) to receive presents and we wait with breathless anticipation to see what lies in those shiny parcels under the tree. As adults, we find that different experiences ‘feed’ us with that wonderful sense of the new–experiences rather than objects.

My year, both personal and ‘professional’, has been challenging and wonderful…