Smashing time at new year

JANUARY seems to have barely gotten underway, but already grumbles have been coming in from various quarters.

Complaints have arrived at the office from a visitor expressing disappointment with the amount of glass smashed at the Hogmanay event in the centre of the town, which was cleared up on January 2.

The report puts a bit of a dampener on the New Year celebrations, which are run entirely by volunteers for local people and are generally good-natured. Perhaps Grampian Police, who were in attendance, could add curbing the anti-social behaviour aspect of the event to their ‘to do’ list for next year, as they have just issued their local policing report for Forres and promised to take action on a number of issues which they claim are the most likely to annoy people in the town.

Their plans range from tackling anti-social behaviour to clamping down on under-age drinkers, and from taking enforcement action against drug dealers to tackling problems with winter roads.

People in Forres could probably add a host of other concerns to that list for the year ahead, but it’s not a bad start.

Talking about good starts, we don’t want to jinx things, but the weather could have been a lot worse in Forres. Snowdrops are already peeking through, and the weather is a far cry from this time last year, when we were a foot deep in the white stuff.

So what does 2012 have in store? In Forres we are promised a number of events to get us off our proverbials and back into the swing of things. A Chinese New Year celebration planned for the end of this month promises a range of events for people to get involved with, and the week-long programme will bring a bright start to the year.

A host of clubs and organisations will also be dusting off their ceilidh shoes and ordering their haggis ahead of Burns Night on January 25.

Whatever your plans for the month and the year ahead, we hope they turn out well.