Happy New Year 2008

The last time I wrote a Happy New Year announcement on my website was 4th January 2005. Back in January 2005, Maria and I had just got married, I had been working at Reuters for about 6 months and, in my spare time, I spent a great deal of time developing Riverside Internet’s WebSolution content management system. In my blog entry dated 4th January 2005, I also spoke about the Asia quake disaster that sent a huge tsunami crashing into coastal areas across South and East Asia.

Three years on and quite a few things have changed... Maria and I are expecting a baby, we moved from our flat in Kingston upon Thames to a house in Purley, I bought and sold a BMW E39 M5. On the work front, I’m still contracting for Reuters, but that's likely to come to an end soon as more development roles are offshored to Thailand. Through my company, Riverside Internet, I still continue to host websites and e-mail for a number of companies and individuals.

In 2007, Maria and I were lucky enough to visit Thailand (including some of the areas that were hit by the tsunami in 2004). We spent several days in Bangkok before flying to Phuket for a relaxing beach holiday. After this, Maria flew home and I stayed on in Thailand for 2 weeks to visit work colleagues in Bangkok. Thailand is an amazing place and we were treated fantastically by everyone we met. I can thoroughly recommend the place - we had a great time!

2007 has been an eventful year. I became a Godfather (thanks to little Mathieu and his parents Ian and Val), my parents celebrated their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. On the world stage, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union; Alan Johnston, a BBC journalist was kidnapped and eventually freed in Gaza City, Palestine; Madeleine McCann was abducted; Tony Blair resigned as British Prime Minister, to be replaced by Gordon Brown and floods caused chaos through wide areas of Britain.

What will 2008 bring us? Who knows. What I do know is that I am looking forward to the challenges that 2008 will bring and would like to wish my family, friends and everyone reading this a happy and prosperous 2008. Happy New Year!