Some people are wise enough not to make new-year resolutions, but I’m not one of them. This year I have two, and I am doing the first one right now. Writing my blog. Sorry about that, but you don’t have to read it, you know you should be doing something else. Don’t you care about the terrible state the world is in? Go off and do something about it right now instead of reading this twaddle! Please. Because if you do I won’t feel so bad about making no effort to do anything worthy, plus I am sure you would be much better at saving people/animals/the environment than I would.

My second resolution is to learn Spanish. This is for my retirement, when I plan to live somewhere warm and Spanish-speaking in the winter. Even though I can never afford to retire. I am also absolutely dreadful at learning languages, it does involve an awful lot of hard work and is horribly boring. But as everyone always assumes I am a local when I go abroad and addresses me in their language (it’s my gorgeous Mediterranean colouring, darling) it would be nice if I could reply rather than looking at them stupidly.

I have made new-year resolutions before, and I have kept at least one of them that I remember, but that was three years ago. It was to write a novel. I have now written two domestic thrillers and these are going to be published in 2023.

Some people think resolutions are a waste of time. In fact, most of the people I know do. Only one of my friends admitted to making one – you know who you are, and yes, it’s also to learn Spanish, which is where I got the idea from, thank you.

I was considering trying to make a new resolution every month, nothing big, something along the lines of trying out a new recipe.  A lovely idea, but as each month would probably end in disappointment in myself, I think it would just make me feel even more of a failure than I do already. Ha! As if! This is false modesty. I know I am a genius. Honest I do.