So, this blogging lark...

I suppose that the start of a new year is as good a time as any to commit your thoughts to the ether for the first time. Looking forward as well as back, hope that this year will be better than last and all that malarkey. Thing is, when you get to a certain age, you don't always believe that this is going to be the case.

I wouldn't call it a midlife crisis, and I don't know if it's unique to middle-aged men, but I've reached the well-documented point where you think "what am I going to do with the rest of my life". Career ambitions are all well and good, but a different job is just a variation on the same theme. This year? Major milestones for the rest of the family - teenage status for M, 16 for A and the big four-0 for MA. Me? Meetings, telecons, PDFs and spreadsheets. More hours, more frustration and more of the same as last year. Which was crap.

I wonder when I'm next going to do something for the first time - everything seems to be things I've been doing day after day for the last 20 years.

Even the holidays don't hold out much hope - when you've seen Kilimanjaro and the Sahara, the Pyramids and Mont Blanc, after you've spent 4 weeks freewheeling through Yellowstone, the Rockies, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and Big Sur, you start to wonder what you can do to top it. Perhaps you should just go "Sod it" and book the 3 week trek to Concordia anyway.

So, what's the answer? Do something about it or sit down, shut up and get on with it, I suppose. Make a change, or accept that this is your life. It's not that it's bad, or anything, just that there's the vague sensation that somehow there's more to it than sleep, work, football and golf.

Anyway, none of this answers the big question about what 2008 will bring - can the Toon eventually lift a trophy? The answer, I suspect, will be as disappointing as the rest of the year threatens to be.