Back to Blogging...

...in which it's another new year.

It appears there's no way of stopping new years arriving, It also appears that even though I know it's entirely a fictional construct and that if you really want to change you don't need a new year to do it, I'm incapable of not using them as an excuse to make resolutions, some of which I even manage to keep.

Now that the house has been de-Christmassed, the children's birthdays are all over (2 of our children have birthdays very close to Christmas - one just before, one just after), and we've stopped eating chocolate for breakfast and drinking wine for lunch (mostly) I thought maybe I should start writing blogs again, since it seems I barely bothered last year.

I've only been within my Slimming World target for one week in the last year; most of the time I've been a fair bit above it (although I am still about 3 stone lighter than when I started). Now that the inevitable gorge-fest that is Christmas is over my first resolution is to get back into my target range by the end of February; that means losing about 2lb a week, which ought to be doable.

I have managed to keep up with my running at least, and I can still do 10 miles or more on a Sunday without too much trouble, so my second resolution is to do another marathon and half marathon this year; I'm likely to do Shrewsbury half marathon (hopefully they'll actually make sure it's a full 13.1 miles this year after last year's "oops, we went you the wrong way" mess that chopped 0.5 miles off the course). I think I'll do Chester Marathon as that's in October which gives me more time to train than most others, as I'd really like to aim for a faster time than I got in Manchester last year (plus it's cheaper).

Other resolutions...well, I bought myself a new acoustic guitar and amplifier over Christmas (I did trade in a couple of older guitars), which are both very nice; the amplifier has 2 channels which can be used concurrently, so I can also plug a microphone into it, although amplifying my voice isn't necessarily the best idea in the world (reverb and an EQ does help a bit though). I'd like to do more with music...resolutions should be measurable though, so I think I'll commit to learning at least 1 new scale per month in every position on the neck and recording at least one song per month.

Finally, I will attempt to write at least one blog post a week, mainly about how I'm doing with the other resolutions. Hopefully that will motivate me to actually stick to them, but we shall see...

Oh, here's a picture of the new guitar and amp:

Happy New Year

...in which I fail to fail to make New Year's Resolutions.


(Yes, the title is correct. No, I didn't put an extra "fail to" in by mistake).


I have resigned myself to the fact that I am not very good at keeping the types of resolutions that are typically made at this time of year. Therefore I decided long ago that I should not make any.  Unfortunately what I know I should do and what I actually do are often diametrically opposed, and therefore I will fail to not make any resolutions.

I'm not sure why I'm so bad at keeping resolutions like "stop eating junk"; in the past I have given up both smoking and gambling, both of which are exceptionally addictive and require huge amounts of willpower to overcome. Since I managed both of them without professional outside help (although my wife Ann did help considerably in both endeavours) it can be assumed that I do have willpower. Maybe I used it all up giving those things up.

Anyway, despite my best efforts to resist there is something very beguiling about the idea of recreating yourself at the start of a new year.  Even though I know there's nothing magical or particularly special about some particular moment in time (other than the meaning that humans give it) I will not be able to resist making some resolutions, and then I will feel guilty about failing to keep them.

So, I thought I would share my resolutions here in the hope that the knowledge that the anonymous (and not so anonymous) people of the Internet are watching me might motivate me to actually put some effort in to keeping them

1) I will join a band before I'm 42 - I have quite a lot of expensive musical equipment and a very nice guitar, which I rarely use other than for practice (which I try to do every day), and I really should do something with it.  I can still remember the last time I played on stage (at a gig with some work mates at the last placed I actually worked for as an employee) and it's a great feeling.  I'm not intending to become a superstar or anything - just some laughs with like minded people and hopefully a few local gigs.

2) I will run another half marathon - I kind of messed up my training for the Reading half marathon last year due to changing contracts a few months before it happened and having a lot less time to train than I wanted.  The most likely candidate this year is the Lake Vyrnwy half marathon, which happens in September.  Hopefully that gives me time to start running seriously again and lose some weight (not necessarily in that order).  


Given the way I felt after running the Reading Half (see here) I'm not sure why I would want to subject myself to that again; I can only assume that I have some masochistic tendencies buried deep inside me somewhere (they must be buried very deep, since generally I consider pain to be a Very Bad Thing).  This time I may do it for a local charity though, rather than my own satisfaction.


3) I will blog more often - This ought to be pretty easy since this is the first blog I've written in err....five and a half months; I'm not going to set myself a schedule but I will try to write every time I think I've got an idea worth writing about or just something amusing to say.  I shall also, of course, be writing about my training for another half marathon but last time I found that was very dull.


4) I will work harder - I've been very bad for the last month or so; this was largely because of the impending arrival of Christmas and with it two of our children's birthdays (Christmas is largely one long week of stress for us as two of our children have their birthdays within 5 days of the 25th, but thankfully it's usually fun stress rather than all out pulling-your-hair-out-oh-good-grief-what-are-the-kids-up-to-now-it's-your-job-to-control-them-no-it's-yours-argh-argh-help type stress).  


The trouble with failing to work is that because I am effectively self employed if I don't work I don't get paid; therefore it's kind of essential that I do quite a lot of work in the next couple of months to make up for the work I didn't do last month, but it's no good moaning about it because I have nobody to blame but myself.


I think 4 is probably sufficient; especially as number 2 carries with it the necessity to a) eat more healthily and b) take quite a lot of exercise so it really counts as 6.


Mad middle child is now moaning at me for toast and will probably throw something at me soon if I don't make it, so I shall sign off there.  Hopefully there will be less of me next time I write...


p'tang-yang-kipper-bang and all that.


C.