Happy New Year 2026

Happy New Year 2026. I hope you manage to achieve all of the goals that you have set for 2026. Just as important though, I hope you have a happy year.

Apologies for taking so long to get this blog out but, as you might expect, I’ve been very busy at work.

Christmas And New Year

The delayed blog is partially due to the Christmas and New Year holidays of course but in addition to that I’ve been away for a three weeks holiday in Cambodia and Vietnam. Yes, I have been working extremely hard but we all need to take a holiday too. I’ve taken my late summer holiday in November/December. The weather was lovely and thankfully we weren’t affected by the typhoons. With temperatures ranging from 24C to 32C it was a bit of a shock when we landed back in the UK during winter though!

Notre Dame Cathedral, Vietnam on LincsConnect

Illuminated Notre Dame Cathedral in Vietnam

It was lovely to see how much Christmas is celebrated in Vietnam and Cambodia. Predominantly Buddhist, both countries have really embraced the spirit (and decorations) of Christmas. I asked locals why this is the case and was informed that the Buddhists appreciate the idea of love, kindness and family gatherings surrounding the Christmas message. While Christianity accounts for less than 10% of the population the celebrations would make you feel otherwise!

The Notre Dame Cathedral is draped in a cloak of lights. Each light you see in the picture is an individual LED bulb! In the foreground ofthepicture you’ll see lots of motor scooters and motorbikes. It’s common to see 3 or 4 people on a scooter and just as common are the scooters with large trailers and huge loads attached. It really does seem like a different word to the one we are used thin the UK.

As planned we arrived back in the UK in time for me to do some local Christmas shopping. That is something I always try to do as I think it’s very important to support local businesses and charities.

Local Support For New Year 2026

I always appreciate local support for my businesses and in return I return the favour whenever I can. For those of you who know me, you’ll remember that I’m a Christmas lover. I decorated our artificial Christmas trees at the beginning of November (before going away on holiday). After arriving back in the UK on Saturday we planned a trip to Heighington Christmas Market on the Sunday. We didn’t have time for jet lag! Later in the week we made the trip to Doddington Hall for our real Christmas Trees.

I think it’s important to support as many local businesses as possible so our artificial trees were purchased from Pennells Garden Centre, real trees from Doddington Hall, additional tree decorations and lights from Pennells Garden Centre (plus a few Christmas presents). While on my travels I popped in to Horncastle Garden Centre for some Christmas presents as well as Horncastle for local gift shopping. On reflection, I’m pleased to say that I didn’t buy any gifts from the multi national stores. Even our food was purchased locally with the turkey being supplied by Simpsons butchers.

Shopping local #ShopLincs is my aim wherever possible. I hope this blog will inspire you to do the same. If you hadn’t considered it before, perhaps you can make your New Year 2026 resolution to support local traders.

Merry Christmas 2025 And Happy New Year 2026

Happy New Year 2026