Questions About 2017

Yes, I know - 2017 is gone, dead and buried. 2018 is already 8 days "old". But I am still thinking about the past 12 months, and I guess I am not entirely alone in that. Of course, I am also looking ahead, not just back, but let me focus on 2017 just for a few more minutes.

We spent New Year's Eve at my sister's, a small party of six. It was a nice evening, quiet and lively at the same time. I had prepared a game for us all to play, based on something I had been reading the day before in my weekly paper: Several more or less well-known people from different walks of life were asked the same questions about 2017. I adapted these a bit and made a card game of it, where we asked each others those questions in turn. It meant not all of us got to answer each question, but I thought about what my answers would be while I was preparing the game.

Here they are:

1. What did you do for the first time in 2017?
Oh, many things! For instance, I was present at the setting up of a maypole for the first time. Also, I visited Zurich for the first time, and had a very posh afternoon tea with all the traditional parts for the first time. (These and several other "firsts" featured on my blog.) Some food and drink I also tasted for the first time.

2. Was 2017 better or worse than what you expected?
Both. It was much, much better in terms of work, but worse under some aspects to do with my health.

3. Who or what was "hope" for you in 2017?
That's a tough one. I rarely expect something from others, but more from myself. I did have some hopes regarding our government to DO SOMETHING about certain things going wrong in this country, but I won't go into detail on my blog when it comes to politics.

4. Who or what was disappointing in 2017?
See # 3 - those things did not come about. And I was disappointed with myself more than once. Also, it was somewhat disappointing that we did not manage a proper family gathering in Yorkshire the way we had done in previous years, and that Aunt J and Uncle B were away and we could not spend time with them as we had done before.

5. Your personal success in 2017?
I won a customer I'd been after (so to speak) for almost two years.

6. Your personal failure in 2017?
Mostly to do with running. Don't ask. Work-wise, I did not manage to make three people who were assigned to a project of mine (not by my choice) do what they were supposed to be doing, when they were supposed to be doing it. The nice approach didn't work.

7. What were you most happy about in 2017?
Another difficult one - there were so many happy moments and beautiful times in 2017! I went on three lovely holidays, saw wonderful places and met the nicest people. Again, a lot of it featured on my blog.

8. What made you most angry in 2017?
Maybe not most angry, but I often was angry about the inability of our rail services (both local and long distance) to provide what I paid for - a trip from A to B in time with the schedule THEY had set up.

9. What was the biggest surprise for you in 2017?
That Ripon introduced its first female Hornblower in the more than 1,000 year old tradition! :-)

10. What news in 2017 could you have done without?
Oh, nearly all of the ones that I saw daily on the main news on TV - too much bad stuff going on everywhere, all the time.

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There were several more questions in the paper, but I think ten are enough. I wonder how my answers will differ after the next 12 months!
(If you feel like answering all or some of them in your comments, or use them on your own blogs, please feel free!)