WELL the London Olympics Year has finally arrived.

Some seven years after the awarding of the Games to Great Britain, we are now on the home straight.

And given the attention already within the first few days of the new year, we want the world to know.

We've had the spectacular Olympic-themed firework display in London, with many of the fireworks in the shape and the colours of the Olympic Rings – described by London Mayor Boris Johnson as "just the beginning – as the eyes of the world turn to London for the Olympic and Paralympic Games".

Lord Coe has been tweeting regularly and Prime Minister David Cameron gave great mention to it in his New Year's message.

For me, the electronic Christmas card I received from the British Paralympic Association helped to bring home to me what an honour and privilege it would be to be selected to compete for Great Britain in a second Games.

Talking of Christmas, a couple of weeks before the big day, I had the pleasure of taking part in a Santa fun run at Elvaston Castle in aid of the charity Rainbows, who provide vital care for local terminally ill children and their families.

Along with 600 others I donned a Santa suit and set off on the 4.4 mile route around the castle grounds.

I was happy to complete the run in under 40 minutes – despite finding myself overheating underneath all of the clothing I was wearing!

Christmas itself was a relatively quiet affair, which gave me the opportunity to spend quality family time with wife, Victoria, and three young children, Molly, Megan and Michael.

The children particularly were extremely pleased with their presents, although the diamond ring that Victoria was hoping for sadly did not materialise; mainly because our washing machine decided to break down and had to be replaced.

However, it is her birthday in June and I have vowed to make amends.

While I did scale back my training regime over the festive period, I did go out on three-mile runs with my dog Daisy both on Christmas Day and New Year's Day and I also incorporated cycling on my exercise bike into my TV viewing!

Another piece of gym equipment I have at home is something called a vibration trainer.

Vibration training is a technique for strengthening and toning your muscles by using short bursts of intense vibration.

The Russian space programme pioneered the development of the technique when they were looking for a way to prevent muscle and bone density loss during long space flights.

Some reports claim that Russian cosmonauts were able to stay in space three times longer than their American astronaut counterparts thanks to their programme of vibration training.

A 10-minute session is claimed to deliver the muscle-building benefits of a full hour pumping iron in the gym, although all of the sports scientists I have spoken to are yet to be convinced of this.

Even so, I have definitely seen a significant improvement in the muscle tone in my affected leg over the past couple of years that I have been using the trainer.

And so to look at the next few months ahead. Aside from my regular individual exercise regime along with training and playing for the East Midlands CP team, I will continue to visit local schools to help promote the Paralympic Games and to share my personal experiences of competing on the world stage.

At the end of February I will be taking part in a Paralympic Awareness Week being organised up in Bolsover and in April I aim to compete in the Derby 10k run before taking part in a three day cycle ride across Derbyshire, which will see a delegation of riders visit every special school in the county with a replica of the Paralympic torch.

I hope that all of the above will ensure that I am in the right shape physically should I get the call to confirm that I have made the Great Britain Paralympic Team.

Readers can follow my progress on Twitter – @Leezylon