Goodbye to 2016 ...... and all that !

Well, it wasn’t such a ‘sweet sixteen’ year after all.

 I am going to focus on personal matters - quite enough has been said in the media of the larger issues!

 Reasons for Regret

I regret our using the particular company we did for our SEO, to help promote our application. The words ‘inept’ and ‘botched job’ come to mind- and those terms are mild only since time has helped to heal the emotional weals! Both time and money were wasted, especially at a time when we really needed to get some momentum going and get out there in the market place.

But there was a silver lining: we have learned to be very circumspect about professed practitioners of these ‘smoke and mirror’ arts. In fact, Angeliki is currently following a course on digital marketing, the social media, etc. and getting amazingly high marks consistently – well done, that lass! We also have a wonderful consultant who is generous of her time and patient about our basic questions - we hope to make progress in the near future. Our freshly designed web-page will be going live shortly.

 I was really upset to hear of the passing of the journalist, AA Gill. It seemed no sooner had he announced his cancer diagnosis, than he had passed on; in a matter of weeks we had lost his unique prose forever. One of my indulgencies is to have a Sunday paper sent out to Greece, and his regular column was certainly a reason for my extended subscription. I loved the fact that, born in Edinburgh, he revelled in being a Scot, and his appraisal of the national characteristics was at one incisive and moving. I will miss his irreverent, sharp humour and his wonderful way with words so much. There is a bitter-sweet sense now in still discovering his work in the backlog of newspapers I’m catching up on over the holidays.

Reasons to Rejoice 

Good health – at the stage in life when ‘symptoms’ becomes a more frequent topic of conversation, when one realizes the imperishable faith and resilience of youth has waned, one cannot take good health for granted. It’s rather like the phenomenon of what is known in the business world as the hygiene factor – something that makes little difference to our lives if we have it; it’s when it’s missing that we really are aware of it!

 As we age, the lovely thing is that we do not care a fig about how others see us - we truly become old farts, ready to comment volubly on whatever is not to our liking, no longer constrained by professional roles or obligations, we can let rip whenever we choose to. There is a beautiful sense of balance here as, on aging, it seems we see more and more things that are deserving of our declamation!

But we should think positive about the new year ahead of us; let’s have sweet thoughts about its arrival ……