The marker to indicate another year of my life rolled past in the preparation of this magazine, was it really twelve months since the last one, it doesn’t seem like it but I guess it must be. Age is not something I’ve ever really paid much attention to, I am as old as I am. I can’t stop the clock or even slow it down – although I admit it would be lovely to be able to stop time, step outside of it take a holiday to catch up on all the stuff that needed doing, and then restart normal time as though I’d never been away. All I can do is to try and live my life to the full, enjoy it, not waste it. Mostly I’ve succeed. I’ve met some wonderful people in my life, been lucky enough to fall head over heals in love more than once and made some great friends. I’ve made mistakes - and sometimes I’ve even been know to learn from them - choices I regret, left things unsaid or undone. I realise this is probably entirely uninteresting to you, but sometimes its good to think back and to remember to enjoy, to cry for as one of our interviewees this issue put it “Without the past, we don’t have the present.” Our memories of our past are selective and fragmented, but as I nurse my mug of tea, and stroll through my past, I draw strength from those memories and I give thanks to the people and places who helped make them. And as the tea goes cold, I wonder excitedly what new ones I will add… sd