When I lost my mum quite unexpectedly in 2002, the little brown paper bag of tea lights she’d bought for her candle holder just hours before going into hospital stuck in my mind for a long time. That, and many other things in her home, seemed to represent hopes and dreams that had gone unfulfilled, and now it was too late.

It was a bit different when we lost both of my husband’s parents within just over a week of each other last month. They were a lot older, unwell, and, by their own admission, they were ready to go. Even so, their loss brought home the finite nature of our time on earth and the importance of using that time to do what matters.

Here’s my starting position: I’m a woman of faith (which is most important of all), I care about society, I crave creativity, and I so often don’t feel ideally suited to the conformities of modern life. But I allow work to dominate so much of my life and thinking. I find it so easy to allow life to slide by, day by day and hour by hour, without thinking about what else matters or - most commonly for me - thinking about else matters but not necessarily doing it.

This little blog is a record of my attempt to have a year of what matters.