Happy New Year to you all. I must say that I’ll be glad to see the back of 2023 as it’s been a sad one for us because people close to us have died unexpectedly. I suppose that’s life as you get older – or don’t!

Blog wise I must admit that I had lost some of my enthusiasm for blogging this year, I’ll see how it goes this year. I haven’t been blogging about places we’ve been visiting and it has all got very bookish, partly laziness I think as those posts are quick and easy to write. But one of the reasons I started ‘Pining’ was so that I could look back and be reminded of the places we had visited in the past.

Bookwise this year has been succesful although I have been reading quite a lot of YA books, trying to catch up on books I didn’t read when I was a youngster, a lot have been by Scottish authors, a lot have been recommended by other bloggers. Constance of Staircase Wit has pointed me in the direction of a lot of good children’s authors, some of which I may have read in the past, but although I read a lot as a child I can’t remember most of them.

Earlier this year I dropped out of Goodreads, I don’t like the Amazon links so I’m being a bit po-faced about it all.  I used to be in Library Thing years ago, I might take that up again, unless anyone can persuade me that I should avoid that too!

Anyway, it looks like I’ve read 125 books this year, not bad going I suppose, although with our weather being so bad (wet) throughout most of the year I haven’t been getting much gardening done so I thought I might have read more, mind you we have been doing some travelling and I didn’t read much then – too tired after all the daytime galivanting! It seems to me that I’ve read more historical fiction than usual, less vintage crime (for lack of books) but more books by Scottish authors. In 2024 I’d like to read more vintage crime, if I can get my hands on any.

I hope that your 2023 has been a good one and that 2024 will be even better!