Tuesday 14 January 2014

Do something

It's been a funny old start to the year. I read somewhere recently that the start of the year should be in Spring, which would make a whole lot more sense. I am always waiting to start the year in January, planning things for the warmer months - as if January and February don't really count at all, a time to just be endured.

Hang on though. I can't be having the days just slip away because I don't like the time of year, I need to get out there and do something. Do something besides working, the children, the housewifery and the routine.

This weeks Saturday Guardian was being read on the Sunday, a particularly beautiful frosty morning where the sun streamed through our windows, blinding us temporarily and making us squint. Pan au chocolat crumbs all over the bed, a second mug of Kenya's finest coffee and the cats joining in the lazing - they can show us a thing or two about lying in. The Sunday morning lie in is restorative, needed, messy - making you feel indulgent when it's all over. Flicking through the family section, then the travel, then the magazine and finally the main bit (in that order) - a new magazine popped up - it was called 'Do something'.



Reading the introduction was like summing up what I have been feeling in these last few months. Dissatisfaction with the routine, the hum drum, the feeling that life was going really really fast and I wasn't making the most of the time. Weeks slip into months, slip into another year and shit, I will be 80. How can I slow it all down? The answer is to do new things, have new experiences - whether they are good or bad. And it's easy to think that you are going to do something new, but you need to tell people you are going to do it - then it's more likely to happen. So, here goes, this is what I am going to do this year:

  • Start a creative writing course in September
  • Compete in a Novice Dressage test - aiming to achieve over 60% 
  • Compete in a Show Jumping competition 
  • Learn to surf for our 10th wedding anniversary in September
  • Go to India in April
  • Learn to crochet with A
  • Learn a piece of music on the keyboard
  • Design an additional career

The way to live as vividly and as memorably as an adult is to keep the incoming data-stream full, by doing new things

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