Apologies for the recent downtime with Lorien.Me, I had a few technical hiccups and lost all of my data (quelle horreur). Fortunately after hours of working on it, phone calls to Fasthosts at 4 am, far too many cups of Nespresso coffees (loving the hazelnut variation) I am BACK – although please bear with me if anything is a bit ‘wobbly’ at first (I am working on it!).

When I last blogged I was just beginning to feel festive and now in what felt like a blink of my eye Christmas is over and we are already into the first few days of the New Year. Christmas is one of my favourite points of the year. To me it still holds that little bit of magic; the atmosphere it creates is so much greater in importance than the materialistic side of things. I love how it brings everyone closer together and how it just seems to have a generic sparkle. I am sure the excessive quantities of great food and abundance of champagne does not hurt mind…

I hope that everyone had a superlative Christmas and I wish you all the best of luck in 2013. On that note one particular thing I hate about New Year is how everyone seems to take the ‘new year, new me’ approach to resolutions. From experience I find for most people this approach does not work and their resolutions are abandoned before we even get to February. I do not think you should be looking at a new you – work at improving who you already are one step at a time with continuous specific improvements through out the next year (and so on for every day of your life). Reflection and laughter are key in this. If you are not happy with your life then do something about it!

When I was re reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s over Christmas one particular line stood out to me. Granted I have taken it out of original context but it is something I am taking inspiration from to adjust my outlook in the upcoming year. I am loosely interpreting it simply as just because I may not be considered ‘normal’ (I hate that word; normality is after all a human social construct!) in many ways I do not need to change – I would rather be myself and be ‘natural’. A reductive interpretation perhaps but I see it as more of a guideline of how to live my life than the absolute law.