Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

As the New Year celebrations approach, it is traditional to think about making resolutions, those choices projected into the far flung future of the year… which few of us actually manage to keep beyond the second week of January. Many of them are ‘ought to’ plans… losing weight, getting fit… We give ourselves ‘all or nothing’ goals and, instead of focussing on our progress, we tend to judge ourselves in terms of success or failure. In fact, the most popular resolutions we make are those which are most commonly broken. We seldom make the simple choice to laugh more or to plunge headlong into whatever adventure the day brings.

Yet the rebirth of the year seems a natural moment to make changes and whether or not we declare a personal intent, there is always the awareness that we stand on the edge of a new beginning. We may look back…