It isn’t often I get time to “just think”. This morning I was forced out of the house as we had yet another power cut (I live in the sticks and it’s like living in the 1970s out here sometimes … I don’t remember the 70s by the way!! Cheeky!) and as I was driving the rain was lashing down and despite that I was smiling to myself. I was thinking about what else I needed to do (the picture is just a tiny part of my “to-do” list … gotta love a list!) – we have set self-imposed deadlines for “the big fat 50” (but we thrive on pressure … I keep telling myself that!): and yet there I was driving to the gym to go swimming for the first time in weeks (I used to go every morning!) and I thought about how lucky I am.

It sounds so clichéd but I have a job I love and even though it’s been a tough year there have genuinely only been a handful of occasions (OK so maybe a couple of handfuls!) when I’ve lost my “mojo” and considered returning back to the corporate world. I have a husband who I adore and I have some amazing friends. My virtual friends are the bestest obviously .. .by that I don’t mean my imaginary friends like “drop dead Fred” I mean other like-minded (you’re all nuts too!!) people who I’ve met through Twitter. Some of you who have read the blog when I’ve been self-indulgent, as I do sometimes will know that I don’t have many family members left and “what would mam say?” has been and continues to be my measure of “ok-ness”. I think that my mam, dad and my brother would all be proud of me.

I know that none of them would be able to get their head around the idea of a “blog” and the thought of baring their thoughts to the world would be beyond them. To be honest its beyond me sometimes and there are times when I have been more guarded than I’d like to be (not many to be fair!) and it isn’t until someone mentions something that I’ve written about, that I say: “oh shit, yeah I did write about that didn’t I?”. My defence, as you know, is that I have “Blogging Tourettes” … I am taking tablets for it, but as you can see from this “nothing-ness” post, they ain’t working.

Recently I’ve been lucky enough to get out and about doing training events and conferences.. Basically doing “stuff” that involves meeting lots of new people and I have been blown away when people say that they read this shiz. I have now started saying when we do a “thing” that you’ll have to remember that I’ve bared my soul so you may feel you know me (and that’s fine) but it’s very much a one way street so you’ll have to forgive me for being a bit of a “muppet” and appearing clueless at times. It’s also hysterical to know that some of you, having met me will now be reading this and hearing me saying it in my voice … that’s not my fault! It’s all in your head by the way.

Get to the point woman! Is there a point? I don’t know!

Actually the point is … it’s been a tough year, not just for me professionally but also for the wider maths community and last week when the SAMs were published it felt like there was a huge collective sigh of relief. There are issues (I’m not naïve!) but now is the time to look forward. No! that’s not my point! Silly! My point is that without all of you reading this and your responses, this blog would just be me speaking to myself (in fact some of my best posts have been when I’ve imagined that no one will ever read it!) … so as we approach reaching yet another milestone on the site (it’s a biggie!) I would just like to say Thank You.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.