In with the new

Do you ever suffer from earworms? Earworms are songs that get in your head and repeat endlessly, usually until they are ousted by another song. I don’t know about you, but I often find they are songs I really don’t to hear once, let alone ad infinitum. I was horrified the other day to find the GoCompare tune repeating endlessly in my head; after checking my reflection to make sure I had not grown some silly wavy moustache, I made it my New Year’s resolution to never go near the GoCompare website and to mute the telly whenever their ad comes on. It was a massive relief this morning to realise, as I got out of bed to make myself a cup of tea, that GoCompare had been replaced and I was now humming Happy House by Siouxsie and The Banshees. I haven’t heard Happy House for ages, so who knows where that particular earworm came from.

I really enjoyed this Christmas. A few days before, I had found Doris, our Parsons Terrier, behaving very strangely. Usually, she is full of life, always hoping that we will take her on yet ANOTHER walk, even if she has already spent the morning running 20 miles alongside Jane on her horse. So it was quite worrying to find her with no appetite for food or exercise and quite an ‘old’ look on her face. Now Jane and I believe in vets about as much as we believe politicians, so we kept her warm and tried to entice her with chicken (which she would normally bite our hand off for) from time to time. Unfortunately, she seemed to be getting more sick and, going off to Ullapool for a few days before Christmas Eve, I dreaded Jane calling me with bad news.

I returned from Ullapool to find her still very ill, so it was the best Christmas present imaginable to wake up Saturday morning, go into the kitchen and see Doris get out of bed and do her funny little dance towards me, tail wagging furiously. After that, Christmas was guaranteed to be a good one, and so it was, with excess of food, drink, family and fun (not to mention England’s fantastic performance in the 4th Ashes test - I didn’t jinx them this time).

I gave myself a few days off, but it was nice to get back to work Wednesday, particularly as most of the snow and ice had now gone. Having said that, I believe that those pupils who did continue their lessons really benefited from the experience. I had one particular pupil in Lossiemouth who had a lesson on one of the worst days. When conditions are really bad I always give them the option of skipping the lesson if they don’t feel comfortable, but Anthony was determined to have his weekly lesson. With significantly less traffic braving the weather, I taught him how to make effective use of the controls, particularly the clutch and gears to cope with some very tricky situations. It was very rewarding for me to watch Anthony handle the car far better than most qualified drivers on the slippy, sloping junctions.

All round to my eldest daughter’s for Hogmanay tonight for, hopefully, as much fun as we had at Christmas. With the weather warming, my pupils continuing to make me proud, several new pupils in Inverness, Elgin and Ullapool, an increasingly healthy and happy Doris, England retaining the Ashes, and GoCompare finally out of my head there is every reason to look forward to 2011. Almost every reason…… I just need Liverpool to remember that they keep the round thing out of their own goal and try to put it in the far goal.

Happy New Year.