Well in the last couple of weeks several things have given me great optimism for the coming New Year.

I managed to submit three compositions to OCP and to have completed that process is something of an achievement for me. I write loads but haven’t submitted much to major publishers and this is my first submission in about 10 years!

In the same week I got an invitation to attend the meeting of the Liturgical Composers Forum in St Louis, Missouri at the end of January. I’m hoping I might pick up a few tricks from fellow composers. I’ve offered them my Canticle of Tobias and my setting of McAuley’s ‘Suscipe’. We’ll see if they get an airing!

It is also possible that my Canticle of Tobias may get heard during the Installation liturgies of our new 6ft 9in Bishop in St Petersburg on 4 January. Having said that I haven’t heard anything for a while after initial interest so it might be off the agenda altogether. We’ll sing it at St Lawrence this Christmas anyhow!

I’ve also just heard that my tenants have renewed their agreement to rent out my house in Sheffield for a further year. This is good news as there was some doubt on the part of the agents.

I also won again on the horses! This time a friend placed the bets as instructed and we all met in a bar to watch the race on TV. The horse ran a terrible race and I was as despondent as my friends until I realised that my bet had been erroneously placed on another race and that that horse had won!

So it’s been a pleasant and auspicious couple of weeks for me so I won’t tempt fate by going on about it!