Dear LPG,

By the time you read this article we will be approaching the beginning of yet another new year (if LPG post it on the day I have asked them to).

That means that the turkey has finally stopped having to disguise itself in sandwiches, soup, salads, pies and stews, and the Christmas pudding is all eaten for this year.  Most of the people who were hosts on Christmas day have finally got their homes looking vaguely ‘normal’ again and we are all wondering what 2020 has in store for us.

I also know that many readers will be dismissing new year’s resolutions as a fallacy.  After all, by the time you get to be a pensioner we have usually tried them all and found that most of all our good intentions fizzle out by the end of the first week. But before writing off the notion for another year, I have a new variation on that theme for readers to think about.

Like so many other people who resolve not to start a new project or make a change at this time of year so as not to find themselves disappointed at the end of the week, I have a new challenge…

Regardless of the time of year, I find that I am a starter and not a finisher and wonder if others think this is a state that the human race grow into with the passing of time.  I have numerous bits of embroidery, plans for untried recipes, dresses that I began but never finished and so much more that I have started with all the anticipation of the feelings of satisfaction I will have once the project is complete.  I even admit to having started this letter with plans to send it last December (but better late than never!)   The truth is that so many of my projects have a lot in common with Beethoven’s unfinished symphony.  Now, he had a really good excuse for not having finished that (and if you are reading this it is definitely one you can’t offer yet!),

So this year I propose that readers adopt the same challenge that I plan to offer myself.  I have resolved to be a finisher and instead of starting something new at the beginning of 2020 I resolve to finish just one of those incomplete projects that, to date, remains half-done.

I have always understood those brave people who decide that there is no use in trying to make a new year’s resolution because I, for one, have now tried and failed on so many occasions, but there is nothing wrong with trying to work with just one of the half-finished ones at the beginning of each year.

Just think… you will only have to do half the work to perhaps get that all important sense of achievement that comes with success…

YD, Crofton Park