I THINK there are points throughout the year that act as markers, moments to pause, reflect and rally before moving on. New Year is undoubtedly one, whether you are a resolution maker or not. All around us people are setting goals, deciding ‘big things’, putting in place plans to become wealthier, healthier, braver or whatever they feel will make them happier. Spring is arguably a time too when as the daffodils say hello and the lambs leap, we take stock, have a good clear out and re-set our minds to the future.

Early September is another such marker. It forever has that feel of ‘bath and hair wash’ before school for me, even though my school days are not so much dying embers of summer as the ashen end, swept up and blown away with sometimes what has felt like little or no control or direction. But still there is that feel that the silliness of summer has closed and it is time to buy a new pencil case and fill it with pencils with which I can write a plan and re-set or remind myself of my goals.

We’ve just come home from a holiday in America. My school days were present in a way that they haven’t been for a long while. We visited Manassas Battlefield, saw JFKs grave at Arlington; peered in to the actual room where General’s Grant and Lee signed to end the American Civil War; saw the grave stone of a signee of the Declaration of Independence; stood in awe before the splendour and dignity of the Lincoln Memorial; gazed at the reflecting pool with Martin Luther King Jr’s words ringing in my ears and then walked past a woman in tears as her eyes scanned the names etched in to the poignant Vietnam War memorial. It was like a whistle-stop tour through my History ‘A’ Level and all the time the moments that I had only read about and written on, were living vividly before and around me. I was stood on the same ground that people had fought, died and made history on and it made me reflect how far we and I have come.

Not all of my life is how I hoped or imagined it would be, back in the days when I had only read about Generals and Presidents and had never felt the heat and humidity of a Virginian August afternoon. Over twenty years have passed and some goals have been set aside, some forgotten, some trampled on. But some I still hold dear. I’ve had a voucher through the post recently from Penarth’s ‘Ogam Igam’ and a reminder that it is a time for new shoes and putting our best foot forward is an obvious analogy to make. Time and travel, alongside experience, have taught me that things change, as do people, often in ways beyond our control but that I relish the chance to rally, re-boot, reflect on the good, relegate the bad and roll on.