These are not resolutions...just thoughts!

It is never easy sitting down to write this, the last blog of the year.  I suppose, traditionally, it should contain a review of what has gone on in the past 12 months, and indeed as preparation, I've just spent half an hour flicking back  through the blog entries I've made during that time.

Action packed, rewarding, and busy. Four holidays, three television series, two personal goals,  not to mention of course the partridge that has taken up residence in the newly planted pear tree in our back garden!

 If you want to see just exactly what those things were, then you too will have to flip back through the entries of 2013. I would hope that it's a good read. It's not just intended to be a diary,  but a place where I can share my somewhat biased opinions, and thoughts.

Something I intend to continue doing through 2014. Now that sounds like a New Year's resolution, and as a rule I just don't make them because I just break them.

But perhaps there are some things that I am aiming to achieve during the next 12 months, on my own, and with my most steadfast and gorgeous partner Richard.

I've done an awful lot of planning for my next book, which I'm intending to be a work of fiction and a whodunnit.  Now I just have to do some serious writing on it, and I think I have got to promise myself four or five days a way to get the first 10,000 words down on paper.

It looks like Richard's parents have sold their house, and are settling brilliantly into their new flat down in Exmouth. Fingers crossed that they get a good sale on their old house, and then they can repay us the loan we made them for the move which will enable us to start looking for somewhere to move to ourselves. We've been here in Sydenham for eight years in a couple of weeks, and we have loved it, but both of us, I think feel it's time to move on and try something new. So a lottery win in the next couple of weeks will be very useful,  just to save us the hassle of sorting out our mortgages on this place and our new purchase.  I had an email from the lottery on Boxing Day morning telling me of  "news about my lottery ticket" and indeed it was a £50 win. Probably just enough to pay for the petrol for the house hunting.

It's been five years since I've appeared in a play,  and although the idea of doing a long run still does not appeal to me, the chance of doing a couple of weeks on a stage piece would be a great thrill.  I'm committed to Hollyoaks until the end of March, but perhaps in the late spring or the early autumn it might be possible to do something on the fringe.

 We are fully holiday booked now  with a New York break scheduled for March, and a two-week 2 centre holiday in Turkey scheduled for June. In the autumn break will no doubt be determined by work, and possibly by house moving.

 January will start with a trip to Amsterdam for a corporate job, a day or so filming in Liverpool on Hollyoaks, a one-to-one interview with Sir Derek Jacobi at The Actors Centre,

 and a trip to Guernsey to do some corporate training.

Hopefully 2014 will bring new challenges, new rewards, and new friends. To all of you who have been a part of my 2013 and helped make it such a wonderful year, I thank you. Whether  you have given me a job, whether you have got me a job, worked on a job with me, or just had the sheer good luck of managing to avoid that, thank you.

Have the happiest of new years and may 2014 bring all your dreams closer.