Good riddance to 2017 and Happy New Year. Usually, I’d be eager to join in and write a list of ten things we won’t miss about 2017; however, my list of shit things that have happened this year would be short and incredibly painful. So instead, I thought I’d try to be positive and write the things I feel grateful for:

• My family
• Finding the right words when I needed to 
• My best friend for always understanding me, always taking me in the right way and always knowing when I’m joking
• Living in a proper house with stairs, garden, fire and a bath
• Living near the countryside and within walking distance of the Old White Beare pub 
• Being able to get jobs with wonderful colleagues, even if I can’t always keep them for long, or do them justice 
• Having made freelance work viable for at least three months
• Friends who invite me to stay and mean it 
• Friends who send messages to make sure I’m ok
• Friends who hate people, but are some of the best people I know
• Malaga – pleased I take friends’ advice and try new places
• Holidays in Norfolk, Whitby, Brighton, Southampton and trips to York
• Finding an Italian meetup group in Ilkley, lovely people, great Italian food and the discovery that I speak better Italian in Yorkshire
• Having a work’s Christmas do even though I haven’t worked there for nearly ten years
• People who can make good martinis
• Jonathan Pie for being the right sort of shouty 
• Twitter peeps who make me smile – Very British Problems, We Want Plates, Frankie Boyle, David Schneider, Marian Keynes and Susan Calman 
• Guilty TV pleasures: Strictly, Gogglebox, Masterchef, Big Little Lies – which I managed to be obsessed by even though I don’t have a television.