For the last couple of years I’ve always written something at the end of the year – a sort of digest of the last twelve months in my life and why break with this tradition.

I’ve finalised my accounts for the last year and rather disappointed to see that total interest (earned from savings) has fallen to £80.10 for 2013, this is down from the £92.10 for 2012 and £88.97 from 2011. However the total amount of my savings continues to grow so most likely poor interest rates from the accounts the money is held in – I will need to take a look at moving money around to maximise interest.

Let’s see if I can get over £100 interest next year.

Car loan has now been repaid so I have more disposable income each month but unlike the last time my loan ended I want to make sure that the money that was being used to repay the loan is being ploughed into savings as I am sure that I will need to replace my car again and want to avoid/limit the amount of any new loan that I may have to take out.

I don’t do resolutions but I did want to set myself some goals for 2013 and all I came up with was the following –

# Make better use of the food stocks I have at home
# Reclaim the floor space in my living space.

Needless to say these were both soon forgotten about and not achieved, I really will need to make more of an effort to use my food stocks and not buy new food. I’m hoping at with food left over from Christmas I will be able to go a little while before having to go out for essentials. My living space is still an atrocious mess and it does seem rather pointless to say that I will clear it up and maintain it for yet another year.

Over the last twelve months things have generally been good, I’ve had a few opportunities to get involved with the community in Llangunnor with various activities that engage different sections of the community.

I helped to organised and carry out a community litter pick – something I have wanted to do since becoming a litter champion in 2012. The event was organised with outside assistance from the people who are promoting “Time Credit” in Carmarthenshire. I would have hoped that the community council would have realised what an advantage Time Credits could be to improving community engagement with the council.

2012 also saw the folks at Llangunnor Church get together to organise a working party to maintain the graveyard, with my ongoing research into the graveyard I though this would be an ideal opportunity to record some information while also doing something worthwhile. They even signed up to the Time Credit scheme so I get rewarded for my time spent.

Friendship Centre opened up at the local chapel and again I felt it was important to assist in anyway I could with this venture as it is another community resource with a great set of people who are actively trying to make things better.

Start of June saw me helping another community spirited individual with a Big Lunch – this should have been a great free event but it had such limited support from the community at large that I was disappointed and it goes to show how much work is needed to recreate a community in Llangunnor.

June was also my 35th birthday and I spent it up in Cardiff going to visit the Doctor Who Experience and spend the afternoon walking around the Bay.

An article appeared in the local newspaper during August regarding the litter picking activities that I have been doing had I hoped would spark up some more local interest but nothing, I still however speak to people when I am out and about clearing litter.

2013 saw me travel about a little, not overseas but went for a few day trips and something that I really should make more time to do, September I used some of my well earned Time Credits to go to a food fair at St Fagans – fantastic weather for this time of year and also travelled again with Time Credits to the Christmas Market in Birmingham – both trips effectively free of charge

I also went to visit old school friends, Nathan and Kate down in Ringwood and to celebrate the wedding of David and Nicola in Scotland, it was lovely to see Davids parents again after such a long time. My first visit to Scotland and to Edinburgh was great and somewhere I would love to go again but maybe not driving the 8 hours to get there in one day!

Not much work has been done on the old family tree during the last twelve months, I did visit Bath and find the final resting place of my Great Great Grandparents (with thanks to a chap from Bath for doing some research for me).

November I did what you might call my first photo session at a wedding, certainly something which was not planned and was as a favour to a fellow councillor but what a stressful situation to be in – made all the worse when it appeared that the official photographer did not turn up at the church. I handed the disk of photos that I felt were acceptable to them yesterday. As I see it I charged them nothing so they cannot complain about the photos taken.

I suppose I should mention work even if only in passing been pretty much the same as always – working for the Government is certainly not the guaranteed job many people seem to think it is and things will only get worse with cutbacks and the eroding of employee rights. Personally I plod along do my job and go home.

I have spoken about Christmas previously and as I sit in on New Years Eve watching television and the firework display in London with a glass of port and a bunged up nose to toast in 2014.

We shall certainly find out what it has in store for each and everyone of us…