To end or not to end, that is the question

Just as, ten years ago, there were heated debates about just when the new millennium began, so now there are debates about just when the new decade begins. Television and newspapers seem to have decided that today is the last day of the current decade and are providing lists of such things as the most influential people of the ‘noughties', as the years 2000 - 2009 appear to have been dubbed. Whether or not the decade runs from 2000 to 2009 or from 2001 to 2010 is not something I can get very worked up about.

Nor can I get excited about the last day of the year. At least there is no argument about just when one year ends and another begins, although that has not always been the case. I don't know exactly when the calendar changed - sometime about 1750 I think - but the year used to end on Lady Day, 25 March. When the calendar was changed there was such a hullabaloo about people losing 11 days interest, that it was agreed to alter the date on which the financial year ended to 5 April, and that is still the case.

Now I have started rambling miles away from what I was going to write about: the highs and lows of the last ten years. (Who cares if the decade still has another year to run?) I had been giving thought to what has happened over the last 12 months and decided that life has, on the whole, cruised along on a pretty even keel during 2009, so I thought back a bit further. During the last ten years there certainly have been lows, but there have been highs as well. The lows include the breakdown of the marriages of both sons, although one has since remarried and appears very happy. My mother died, but that was a blessed relief as she had lost her sight, was practically deaf and was in considerable pain. The highs have included the births of three delightful grandchildren. The lowest of the lows was, I suppose, the (almost) diagnosis of the Old Bat's condition, although conversely one of the highs this year is that it has progressed much more slowly than I had feared. I just hope and pray that the same applies during 2010.