Well, here we are coming to the end of the year. I’ve
published 20 blogs this year on a variety of subjects, from chickenpox to
anger, lifestyle change to tonsillitis. I’ve noticed though that the ones that
get read the most are my personal blogs, about my life and what I am trying to
do with it. So I thought that this blog should be about my looking back over my
year and thinking about what I have done. I do try to do this at the end of
every year, and then at the beginning of the next year I think about what I
want to achieve. Do you know why? Well, to be brutally frank, it’s because I am
very easily bored, so I have to be able to make things different for myself on
a regular basis. If I thought that my life went on, year after year, same thing
day after day, I would probably run away screaming. I agree, it’s a terrible
character defect, but like most personality traits, it has a good and a bad
side!
The good side is that I’m generally aware of where I am
going, and how I plan to get there. In order to achieve that, I have to look at
where I have been and where I am now. So let’s look at the latter - where I’ve
been and where I am now.
I started the year with plans for a lifestyle change. As the
year progressed, I refined my lifestyle changes into two areas - 1) diet,
weight and fitness, and 2) ‘Daring greatly’ - taking the risk of doing
something I wanted to do.
Of course, life threw in some unexpected events, as it is
prone to doing. My daughter and her baby moved back home in March, and that has
thrown a proper spanner in the works. Little Henry is a complete delight, and
his mummy is wonderful, but that child eats time. Of course he loves his granny
(poor deluded child!) and likes to be carried around by her, wants to sit on
her knee when she is at her desk, and makes more mess that Attila the Hun on a
night out! And who can resist that little face? Not yours truly.
At the end of last year a member of the family died
suddenly, and that caused mayhem, as there was no will and no money, and lots
of mess to clear up. Then of course my partner had a heart attack in May, and
he had lots of lifestyle changes imposed on him very suddenly. That was a very
worrying time. And I also lost my poor old Buster dog, and my ginger cat.
So life did its thing, and I tried to do mine. I managed the
dietary change quite well - more complex carbs, less saturated fat, more low
fat protein. I even discovered that home made wholemeal pasta is delicious,
which was a revelation! I lost over a stone, and have kept it off without any
problem. I haven’t lost more than that, or been near a gym, or done any yoga,
so those things remain on my to-do list for 2014!
On the ‘Daring greatly’ front I have done much better.
Despite that small child eating my time, I have started the research for a book
I want to write. It’s a historical novel, and needs to be accurate, so I am
reading as much as I can about Britain in the 16th century. It’s
going well, in that I am getting closer and closer to writing some sort of
detailed plan of events. I had a great week doing ‘visual research’ with my
sister Sylvia - I don’t think she will ever want to see another castle as long
as she lives! - and that really helped me in terms of atmosphere and landscape.
The research is taking more time than I had planned, but I think I was being
over-ambitious and need to be more realistic about what I can achieve. The plus
side is that I am really enjoying it!
And that is a complete breakthrough. I have always wanted to
write, and never dared take the risk, and now I am. And it may all go very
wrong, it might be that I never find a publisher for example, but at least I
will have tried. So I am happy with my year. It’s been up and it’s been down,
it’s even been round and round, but at least I have started something that I am
proud of, something that makes me happy. And that can’t be a bad thing!
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