Consider this to be my end -of-year round robin – its my blog version of those programmes with the B-list celebs talk about the highs and lows of the year – minus the celebs, and hopefully not as cheesey. SPOILER ALERT – it does mean that I have included some personal and non-teaching related things!! I have added an extra challenge of trying to list each item in less than 120 characters a la Twitter, so I apologise for the short, sharp sentences and total disregard for punctuation and/or grammar !?!?

1. Turning 40. It was a milestone year for me but I can confirm it was painless.

2. India at Easter. Sun, sand and best mates. What a way to celebrate turning 40.

3. Promotion at work. Chuffed!

4. Brother killed in motorbike accident. I still miss him every day. x

5. Letters received from 2 people who received my brothers kidneys after his accident. Emotional.

6. Results in Maths show us to be joint 2nd in county –  School has best results in town EVER.

7. Husband drove to Greece – I flew – we spent 2 weeks with my fab godchildren! Superb.

8. Father admitted to dementia assessment unit. Still there. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

9. Husband got a permanent position – after being made redundant in my PGCE year!

10. Finally setting up a blog, website and JustMaths …. it’s a work in progress but very exciting

11. Oldest brother turned 60. Family get-together showed he’s still “got it”.

12. Christmas with my godchildren and best mates … who wouldn’t enjoy being around kids at this time of year.

Oh what useful exercise this has been – it has really made me reflect on the past 12 months.  Over the next couple of days I will putting together my hopes, plans and ideas for 2013 … I suspect that will take some thinking about.