Steve Duncan: A New Year..and new goals ahead
So much goes into Christmas, including the present buying, the parties, the tree, the decorations, the food buying and cooking, the family reunions and then it’s over for another year.
A new year has dawned and I’m now back at the Community Foundation preparing for another busy and exciting year ahead. I am so lucky to get back to what I feel is the best job in the world! 2022 was a mixed year for me personally and I would like to think 2023 will be an upgrade!
Not sure about anyone else but I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this time around. I know I need to shed a stone or two in weight and I know I need to walk and cycle more but I’m not going to put pressure on myself and aim to lose ‘x’ pounds each month or walk 10,000 steps a day or cycle to work each day. Instead, I will ease myself into 2023, enjoy each day, try and be kind and courteous to others and the rest, as they say, will take care of itself.
Weather-wise during the Christmas break the rain made up for the dry summer we had! Wall to wall rain, day after day, with very few breaks has certainly helped to fill the local reservoirs but hasn’t been great for walking in the beautiful Calderdale countryside! Every time Alex and I planned to get out with the dogs, when a certain channel’s weather app stated it would be dry, turned out to be grossly inaccurate! We got out most days and one day we came across several people on a walk around Scammonden Reservoir who looked like drowned rats and cursing the weather forecasters for being so inaccurate! Some things
never change!
Weather aside I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why I live where I live, what keeps me here and given it’s a big milestone birthday for me this year - will Calderdale be the place I retire, or will I move on and move to the coast?
As I have previously stated in my monthly column – I absolutely love Calderdale. I love the people; I love the countryside and I love my job. But at some point, I will need to think about my life after my job, which I really can’t get my head around right now. I have lost count of how many people have said to me that they find their job a drudge and all they want to do is have a job where they feel they can make a difference for others. I have just that and it will be incredibly difficult to let go of.
Calderdale is my home and the people I have met, the friends I have made and their generosity is what drives me on and what keeps me here. Long may this continue.
Have a good year everyone.