Tag Archives: resolutions

Goodbye 2017…

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So how was 2017 for you? Did you achieve goals, fulfil your resolutions, make a fortune and experience satisfactory or heart-warming life events? Or were you mired in failure, misery and crashes and burns?
Most years, of course are a mixture of these experiences, both in our personal lives and out in the wider world.
In our own little bubble 2017 was mostly a great year. We had adventures, travelling first to Mexico [underwhelming], later to Italy in an extensive and audacious camper-van journey involving numerous ferries and taking in a number of different countries en route; we made our familiar late summer trip to South West France.
Then our family was expanded by a new member, an event that few could consider anything but joyous.
The negative aspects of 2017 consist mainly of those health issues which come to be such a feature of ageing and which [of we are not careful] become the mainstay of discussions between ourselves and friends of a similar age. Even Husband, who, in his typical male way likes to brush ill-health under a proverbial rug has succumbed to medical intervention. Matters of corporal dysfunction must be accepted, acted upon and then shrugged off.
In 2017 events in the world arena were disquieting. Despite progress against extremists the world became a more brooding, xenophobic and intolerant planet as global threats, hatred and prejudice jostled with polluted atmospheres, floating ocean debris and catastrophic weather events.
World problems often seem too huge to contemplate. We re-post information about beach clean-ups and re-using plastic bottles. We add our digital signatures to campaigns about famines. We make contributions to crisis funds like homelessness. And yet the problems persist, reminding us of how insignificant we all are, how helpless.
But it is always best to look forward and to be optimistic. I’ve long ago given up making resolutions, although I am determined to complete a project I began two years ago and to get it out into the public domain in some respect. I’ve high hopes for a return to my gym regime once a certain foot issue has been resolved and in the meantime we are busy planning 2018’s round of expeditions, the first of which takes place next week. We’ll be without access to internet for a couple of weeks, conditions which will certainly do us a power of good!
The next two blog posts will consist of a brand new two-part story. This is my new year gift to you, readers. If you enjoy it, please let me know in the comments [and share it with others]. If you don’t, please let me know that, too-and why. After that we will have returned and hopefully with more traveller tales! Happy New Year to all my readers, old and new!

2016? Sleep on it…

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Christmas-yes it’s lovely, yes it’s festive. There is a warm, fuzzy glow everywhere-in the shops, in the pubs, in the cafes, along the streets and in the homes. We decorate, we shop, we cook. We send cards and receive them, exclaim over seldom contacted friends’ messages, speak to long-distance relatives. We deck the halls. We peel, chop and baste. We make table decorations, lay out crackers, pass things around, pour drinks, make toasts, watch the Queen/don’t watch the Queen,  play games, hand out gifts, open gifts, watch TV’s lack-lustre, festive offerings, crash out, wake, get up and begin again.

We eat too much, drink too much, feel bloated. In the mornings there is a swathe of last night’s glasses bearing dregs, demanding to be washed; and chocolate wrappers festooning the surfaces along with crumbs and pieces of nut shell. The dishwasher groans as you heave open its door, its bulging contents demanding to be dispersed.

I look forward to Christmas as much as the next person, preparing and anticipating but then when it comes all I really want is for it to be over. It belongs to children, this winter celebration with its pretence of magic and if you’ve access to a small child there is pleasure to be got from their enjoyment-otherwise there is a tendency towards anti-climax.

Nobody should wish their life away, especially when what remains is dwindling but 2016 needs to be behind us. It has been the year the world turned grim, forgetting any lessons history should have taught and returning instead to crude, emotions-led political decisions, territorial feuds and downright bestiality.

I’ve said before that I don’t do resolutions but planet earth needs to do some. There is an alarming deficiency of concern over climate change as we are about to be plunged back into over-reliance on fossil fuels. Genocide and brutality abound within and outside of conflict zones and how on earth is any of this to be tackled if we exacerbate hostility to foreigners and visitors by cutting ourselves off?

Though not a fan of cold weather I’m feeling introspective at this, the dormant part of the year. Yesterday the frost painted a stunning picture of a tree on our bedroom window, reminding me that there is still a lot to love about the world around us if we choose to preserve it. In winter nature reins in, hibernates, repairs and prepares. We should do the same, appreciate and cherish what matters the most. So I’m not going to feel guilty for spending time doing very little; for watching the garden birds or staring at a view or sitting quietly and thinking-because it’s just me doing what the season dictates and having a dormant spell until spring rushes in and stirs everything up!

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Happy New Year, Anecdotage readers-here’s to better things in 2017!

 

Ditch the Lifestyle Advice-It’s all Here with Grace’s Guide

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I don’t make resolutions. I may have done so in the long, distant past, but some previous experience must have taught me that such determinations are bound to fail.

This does not prevent everywhere and everything else bombarding you with encouraging and/or harassing messages. Facebook, for instance has many well-meaning souls posting up urgent lists of to-do and not to-do. TV adverts are choc full of well-intentioned exhortations-‘STOP SMOKING’, ‘LOSE WEIGHT’, ‘GET RUNNING’, ‘EAT BUTTER’, ‘DON’T EAT BUTTER’, ‘5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR WILLPOWER’, ‘GYM MEMBERSHIP OFFER’, ‘START COLLECTING’, ‘TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE’-blah blah…

The trick, as far as I am concerned is to begin any ‘life changes’ you want to make as soon as you are ready, ie now, next week, on August 14th or never, if that is what suits. I gave up smoking during a memorable mini-break in Barcelona with Husband one Easter, resulting in some explosive differences of opinion-one in the middle of a busy thoroughfare as I recall.

I used to be a runner. I began running one random morning, early, before anyone else was awake. I started with a miniscule stumble around the block. Years later I was regularly running ten miles, until injury broke in and stole the party. I happened to be jogging along the promenade one New Year’s day and met some ex-colleagues out walking. ‘New Year’s resolution?’ one suggested, provoking an affront that only an increase in pace and distance could assuage. I’d been running every day for about twenty years by then.

Rather than pledging lofty and unachievable goals I prefer to make myself suggestions. I think, ‘I might take up yoga’ this year, or ‘I might get back to my abandoned novel’, or ‘I could clear out those outgrown and outdated clothing items’. See what I mean? This way you don’t set yourself up for failure. It might happen; or it might not.

Another strategy is to qualify resolutions by adding ‘continue to’, as in ‘I will continue to walk to the shops if there isn’t a hurricane raging’ or ‘I will continue to reply to emails within the month in which they arrive’. As you see, I don’t try to make it too difficult. I’m not aiming to fail. Sometime during this weekend I just might take a look at the website for a new gym that opened towards the end of last year [matching my strategy very nicely] and I might even look for a yoga class to attend-but then again I may not have time.

So there you have it. Tried and tested lifestyle advice. My New Year’s gift to readers. Some people pay a fortune to lifestyle gurus to know how to improve their lives, be better, richer, healthier, thinner and happier. More fool them!