Counting down

Don't laugh. But I dreamt of Barrack Obama last night. He was visiting my family and we were seated around a table in the garden, chatting like old friends. The atmosphere was relaxed, like he was on a holiday and no bodyguards were present. It was a nice dream.

Don't ask me how these dreams come about. Things I read about reappear as dreams at night. I must have read about Obama's Hawaiian vacation lately.

Anyway, back to the real world. This has been a turbulent year for business. The maritime industry had never experienced a year quite like this, so we've braced ourselves for an unspectacular financial year. As expected, we didn't do as well as last year, or the year before. Maybe even the one before that.... There's nothing we can do about it but at least we can hope for a better year ahead.

That said, we launched two new products this year amidst the recession. The results have been pretty encouraging and we hope to see more gardening kits and stickers flying off the shelves next year.

I must say this has been a fulfilling year marked by many happy events. I visited Shanghai, Hanoi and Phuket, so my wanderlust has been satisfied for now. I've attended two weddings and there's one more to go before the year ends. I've lost count of how much food I have gobbled down at so many parties but I can only count one running event I went to. It's not a marathon or half marathon, but a 4km run to raise funds for cancer research. It was for a good cause...

Well, the other race I signed up for, RustiRun for dogs and dog lovers, has been postponed to early next year. So yah, I did a grand total of one race this year.

Of course this year we were all devastated to hear about Rusty's eye condition. The good news is, he's coping well with one good eye but we must always stay vigilant. He's only six with many more years ahead, we can't afford to let anything happen to his good eye. As the kids always say, Rusty is the best thing that has ever happened to our family.

So, we've almost come to the end of the year. The kids will begin a new school term in a matter of days. I hope next year will be better for you, me and Rusty too.