Happy...

Okay, this is the first, last and only time I'm going to write this here: Happy New Year.

Now that I'm old and time passes so much faster than it used to, a new year isn't so much something to celebrate as an event that makes me ask: What, again? Already?

I'm quite happy to say goodbye to 2013. I was never comfortable with the year because it had a 13 in it. Not that I'm superstitious. But I am a teeny bit OCD. My number obsession includes counting stairs as I go up them (but not down - that would just be weird). I also like doing sums involving dates but any sum involving 2013 was just too hard. So the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. That's...well, em, a while ago - too hard to work out in my napper.

Newspapers are, like me, obsessed with people's ages and years of birth. I once read an article that began: "Hillary Clinton, 57..." What, given who she is and what she's achieved, that's the most important thing you can say about Hillary Clinton - she's 57? I do like doing wee sums to work out how old people are but when it got to working out: Barack Obama was born in 1964 so in 2013 he's how many years old? the only answer I can come up with is: quite old but not as old as me.

I'm happy to admit I'm mainly a word person, having been put out of the Maths department at the end of fourth year, after which I happily took refuge in languages. However, I loved arithmetic (90-100% in the O grade). Hated Maths - 50-55% in the O Grade). I could see the point of algebra but geometry? Trig? Pah!

There's something very satisfying about numbers (especially even numbers in my opinion). Years of listening to Maths PTs in meetings waxing lyrical about Advanced Higher calculus made me want to ask them: You guys (and gals) just love numbers, don't you? But I never dared in case they denied it and left me utterly disillusioned.

So a Happy New 2014 to you all. And if that number doesn't please you, don't worry - 2015 will be along in no time at all.