The year is drawing to a close.  I am grateful that my work is quieter than usual in the week leading to Christmas, especially as the work in my kitchen continues.  It’s been a challenge to work effectively against a backdrop of noise and dust.

The work is, though, turning a corner.  Some of the noisiest work – stripping back the fireplace and making a hole for a new back door – is done now.  Wills has been plastering the new ceiling which gives a first glimpse of the kitchen as it will be in future.

In the midst of a busy day I take a moment to think of all the people who – well, people – my life.  I have been busy sending cards and greetings and still, this is not enough to reach everyone who matters to me.  I feel playful, and take the opportunity to write my good wishes on the last of the old paper in the kitchen.  Soon it will be gone, though my good wishes remain.

In words often attributed to Confucius (see this interesting explanation of the origins of the phrase) we do indeed live in interesting times.  Our futures – individual and shared – are uncertain.  The kind of material prosperity we have come to take for granted may or may not be ours – may be some of ours but not all of ours – in the years ahead.  As I write I wish you prosperity of other kinds – prosperity in your own resourcefulness, spiritual prosperity, prosperity of wisdom, prosperity in love, friendship and the richness of emotions experienced fully as well as prosperity of many other kinds.  May you find you have everything you need to enjoy 2012, whatever it may bring you.