Here I am a day late for Christmas – I hope you all had a great time with friends and families and my wish for you all is that you’re as safe and happy as you can be at this time and with loved ones if that’s possible.

I’m about to take a (fairly) big break here. Including my first real break from the social media platforms – I go pretty hard over at Blog On The Tracks on Facebook and with @Blog On The Tracks on Twitter and there’s the Blog On The Tracks daily blog over at Stuff.co.nz. They’re all taking a break after tonight (Boxing Day, December 26, 2014) and coming back mid-way through January in the New Year of 2015. It’s only a couple of weeks but in a life of so many daily posts that’ll feel like more than two weeks.

I’m off to catch up with family, to recharge the batteries, to finish some of the books I only got around to starting and to hang with my patient and wonderful wife Katy and our marvelous, passionate and never-shy 3-year-old son, Oscar.

It’s been a big and busy year here at Off The Tracks. We welcomed Jon McLeary’s guest blog, The Ghost of Electricity – his weekly War Stories (I’m scheduling one tonight to appear Monday, December 29, 2014 – that’ll be the very last post of the year here).

I carried over and carried on several new blog-topics from their starting point on the Phantom Billstickers Facebook page including most recently Drummers You Just Can’t Beat, Authors I Admire, Movies of My Life and It Was The Worst.

There were more album reviews posted here than I’ve ever written in a calendar year – so many that I started a weekly series of Digests to highlight all the rave-reviews of each month.

I then left a long list of albums of the year over at Stuff’s Blog On The Tracks and then followed on with a Christmas Eve post of My Top 15 albums of 2014.

There were book reviews and movie and DVD reviews – and I hope to do more of those next year. A few new interviews too. And some occasional other rants – including your Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now posts (which I love).

We had some new advertisers this year and we’ll – of course – be looking for more next year drop us a line if you’re interested.

I want to thank you for your time if you stop by here – and if you’re reading this then clearly you do. So thank you.

Off The Tracks is my home for my writing – but it needs an audience. And I value that you make the time.

All the best for the holiday season. And here’s to even more great music in 2015.

And now I can sign off – the holiday (proper) begins…excuse my indulgence here but I really feel like I’ve earned a wee break this year.