About this time of year people will start getting letters informing them of how much council tax they need to pay for the next year. These bills as they are normally broken down into a number of sections informing you were the money is going that makes up the total for the year.

Here we have it broken down into three sections, the local authority takes the largest share, the community or parish council and the police authority.

I had a little part in the decision making process when it came to setting the local precept here as a community councillor, basically the community council finance committee had a report which detailed how much money they needed for the coming year. As councillors we were given three options and went for the largest increase.

However it was mentioned at the last meeting that we had one of the lowest rates for a band D property with it being about £35 a year!

This seems really good but I start asking myself what exactly are we spending our £37,000 a year on?

I am blaming Christmas for the excessive amount I have spent on my credit card but looking back at my statements online it would appear that I began to lose control of the credit card in April 2012 when I spent a fair amount during the month and did not pay it all off as usual. I know that I went to Warminster around this time and some of the spending was associated with that trip. Looking at May things were getting back on track but in June there was a massive spend (again looks like I was away in North Wales)

Since then it would appear that I have been spending more than I have been paying off at the end of the month which is why I has built up in the way it has.

Looks like this will be my first priority of 2013, without using saving reserves I would estimate that the debt should be cleared by May 2013, maybe a little quicker if I can make savings in others areas.

This time last year I spoke about what 2012 had in store for each and everyone of us – that Mayan thing turned out to be just like every other prediction regarding the end of the world!

New Years Eve was spent quietly at home with a few glasses of booze while watching television and watching the customary firework display down in London in HD (High Definition).

Cooked a gammon joint for dinner on New Years Day and put up two new shelves, the quality is of the shelves is dreadful and I wish I had gotten them from another shop. They will of course serve the purpose I got them for and once they are fully utilised I will access the need to get anymore.

During the afternoon as the weather was unseasonably dry and bright I decided to go to Kidwelly to take a walk along the river, it was nice and gave me the chance to take some photos and for some quiet reflection. Sometimes it is good to be alone with your thoughts, this is one of the reasons I love visiting old churches and spending time in the graveyard just thinking about life and other such deep and meaningful things.

I don’t do resolutions but do want to set myself some goals for 2013 just having some trouble coming up with any, so far I want to -
# Make better use of the food stocks I have at home
# Reclaim the floor space in my living space

Will come up with more and will give them a separate entry.

Every year for as long as I can remember I have posted some sort of review of the year this has taken many forms over the years but the one thing in common is that I normally pluck out the details from the previous entries I have made over the last twelve months. Looking back at the archives I have posted very little this year so instead I will have to use my memory and check back on any photos that I have taken over this year.

I did not set myself any goals or challenges for 2012 and wonder if this was a bad idea as sometimes it can be good to have it written down somewhere so that it can prompt you during the year but after ending my 101 things project three years later than planned maybe I needed some time without any goals.

2012 saw me volunteer at the Books For Free store in Carmarthen and it started off well and I met some really nice people while at the store but I soon felt that the rot was creeping in with the certain volunteers having the ear of the lead volunteer and with no clear direction as to where the store was going I handed in my notice at the start of October – I do feel that my time and effort spent at the store was not valued and even with my visits to the store since leaving I can see that nothing has changed.

January 2012 also saw the lost of my nanna, truth be told I was not as close to her as I should have been and don’t really know the reasons for this. As a child I would spend holidays up in Cardigan with her and my aunts but in recent years had only seen her occasionally at family occasions – normally funerals or weddings! I suppose as one of the children of my Great Grandmother her death only a few months after her brother felt like a link to that generation being severed, from a family history point of view those memories and stories have gone for good. The death was something that I had started to create an entry for on here but I just could not find the words to complete it.

Talking of family history I did venture across the border to England to carry out some research on the Whatley family and spent a few days at the Wiltshire Record Office going through records for baptisms, marriages and burials and have started going through all that raw data now and cross checking but time is something that has escaped me this year. During my trip I was also able to visit Stonehenge, somewhere I have always wanted to go and visit but one of those places that have always eluded me as has much of the great places to be found in the United Kingdom.

May saw me elected as a community Councillor in Llangunnor, I had stood for the position back in 2001 when it came down to a vote that I lost by 32. This time no election was held I’m sure this is a sign of the times with so many people lethargic about politics etc. Have to admit that since May I have not managed to change the world or even the community and I suppose this is something that I did not expect to happen overnight but I have learnt a great deal about how the council works.

Around the same time I signed up to be a Tidy Towns Litter Champion and have spent a fair few hours at the weekend picking up litter in the community of Llangunnor, I had hoped to have been a little more visible so that I could promote the work that I am doing and maybe find some others who might take an interest to keep the community clean and tidy.

Took another trip to Snowdon, cheated this time and took the train to the summit but did take some great photos and spent the night in Caernarvon visiting the castle before the journey home.
A lot of my time over the last twelve months has seen me doing research for the project that I spoke about this time last year, basically I am trying to build a resource site about the community of Llangunnor at the moment I have transcribed census records from 1891 – 1911 but have loads more information that needs to be uploaded but it all takes time, I’m hoping to get a lot more information online within the next few months. Over the last twelve months the local press has had a number of articles about sites springing up of Facebook which seem very similar to what I am doing but to date I have not gone to the press regarding Llangunnor Network.

November I decided to grow a beard, it was all part of Movember and a few people in work growing moustaches to raise awareness of cancer. I don’t think I look at good with a moustache so decided to go for the full beard and it was not that bad – it split opinion in work with some people loving it while others hated it.

Again I’m generally happy with how I’ve been managing my finances over the last twelve months there is of course room for improvement and I will need to keep a better control over certain spending. Over the last twelve months I have gained interest of £92.10 which is again up on the 2011 figure of £88.97. Let’s see if I can get over £100 interest next year.

So as I approach midnight my reflection on the past year must come to an end and I will need to look forward to 2013. On the whole 2012 was a good year.

I had written an entry on Christmas Day but due to technical problems it was lost, I have done some cleaning of the database files and can finally post again.

Christmas Day came and passed in a flash, something not helped by the fact that I did not wake up until gone midday and immediately had to start preparing dinner. I had hoped to go to the Christmas Day service at the local church but had completely missed that due to oversleeping but had managed to go to a midnight mass service the night before – which might explain why I had overslept.
With all the cooking I was able to sit down for my starter just before 5pm and in the end I had opted for that old favourite – prawn cocktail. Followed shortly afterwards with Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.

I had asked for practical presents as I am very difficult to buy for and did not want more junk that would take up space, so got a few DVD’s and blue-rays, loads of the traditional deodorant gift sets so should not need to buy any for a good few months. I really will have to get my gifts together so that I can take the customary photo.

Since my last update I am happy to say that with the help of a good friend I have gotten rid of the old television, microwave and some other small surplus electrical items that have been cluttering up my room for way too long. I am hoping that this will be a turning point in my hoarder mentality as I actually “allowed” my friend to take a load of my old videos to dispose of and will be finding more that will go to the same place. Some of my family tree computer disks have been copied on to a hard drive so I can get rid of the physical cd’s. It has freed up some space and the magazine no long issue the cover cd’s but the information can be downloaded so that will ensure that they can never build up again.

I have also looked with a more analytical eye and what else I could do to make better use of the space that I have available to me and hope to be a lot more proactive with my approach to keeping order in my living space going forward a major challenge will be for me to not be as sentimental towards things as that is leading to a lot of clutter.
Merry Christmas – Nadolig Llawen