New year’s resolutions
Felicitations on making it to 2018 and might I take this opportunity to wish you the most joyous and jubilant of years? Here for your delectation is my finely honed and massively whittled down list of – I hope achievable – new year’s resolutions.
1Shake things up a bit. Just occasionally ditch the tried and tested, bin the predictable and take myself on a mini-adventure. It’s dead easy to become entrenched in the familiar. You know what you like. You like what you know and before you realise it you’ve morphed into that excruciatingly dull figure – a creature of habit. I’m not advocating banishing the partner, flogging the house and setting off in a caravan to become a tarot card reader. But stepping off the usual route and plunging into the unknown before I become too rigidly entrenched to dare to experiment is a must.
2Rev up the friends roster. Sure, I’ve acquired lifelong chums along the way and I love them hugely but the time to branch out socially is now. I know it’s not easy to make new pals. People seem to scuttle off with their Other Halves and hang out within their exclusive circles, leaving no room for infiltrators. Yet we’re all also aware that loneliness is an epidemic and as bad for our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So I’m going to place the cultivating of potential companions firmly on the agenda. The oldies are the goodies but, who knows, a few newbies could, as the old advert used to say, “bring the freshness back”.
3Last year’s NYR was to change my sagging and decrepit 20-year-old bed. I waited till December 21 to get round to it but, Lord above, the replacement is the veritable incarnation of earthly bliss. It is plump and commodious, springy and supportive in all the right places, comes complete with a pale-pink velvet headboard which is a tonic to behold and almost guarantees refreshing slumber. What’s my resolution? Not to wait so damn long to fulfil my resolutions. Stop prevaricating and get on with it, especially when the net effect will spread a sizeable dollop of happiness.
4Don’t allow time with the grandchildren to be swamped with the ordinary. There are pizzas to be sliced, toys to be tidied away, teeth to be cleaned and a million other bog-standard jobs to be done. Time with grandbabies is far too precious to be squandered on boring old chores. Remember to make memories, keep life epic and factor in special moments that can be filed away in their memory banks and make a star appearance in yours. Personal favourites include dancing with a banana under each arm, hunting for the moon by torchlight and slicing a salami lengthwise instead of into circles.
5I say this every year but make friends with a charity and check out ways in which I might be of use. Find out what it needs and select the contribution that suits me. It’s no use promising to cook lunches if you’re a reluctant chef. Research, investigate, work out where you are a comfortable fit and watch the feelgood factor rise.
6Prepare a card with my thoughts on Brexit inscribed upon it. Reach into my pocket and produce one whenever the conversation veers Brexit-wards. Save energy and escape heated arguments. Unless
7RESOLVE: Don’t ration the time you spend with grandchildren but do try and cut back on bingewatching the telly I’m in the mood for a right old humdinger. In which case, leave card in pocket and hold forth. Take holidays in days rather than weeks. We all know a long weekend off is salve to the soul. We all know a whole week in any location however delightful can feel like a life sentence and an entire fortnight of enforced idleness can turn out to be more penance than pleasure. In 2018 I hope to slope away somewhere nourishing to the constitution for lots of odd days, stealing moments of happiness, not booking out formal swathes of time labelled “must have fun if it kills me”.
8Stop popping painkillers. I’m allergic to codeine so I don’t get any more exciting than generic paracetamol or ibuprofen but I’ve noticed myself reaching for them at the first vague warning sign that a
12Stay offline. You know by now Gentle Reader that I’ve never Googled, sent or received an email or bought an item online. I can’t. I have a £25 ancient Nokia and no computer, iPad or any other equipment.
The height of my acquaintance with technology is the sending of a text message. Each year the pressure to succumb to a smartphone and spend my days scrolling through pictures of other people’s croissants, dogs balancing a ball on their noses and posts about the weather is stronger. I’m told I can’t be got hold of. I’m rebuked for paying bills with a cheque, envelope and stamp. I’m assured that I’m behind the times, outside the swim and will never survive unless I join the 21st century. I still don’t fancy it. I don’t warm to being threatened. I’m happy just as I am and intend to remain that way. There you have it: a list of hopes and dreams. I know I won’t succeed in sticking to my guns, attaining all I set out to or even embarking on some of my more ambitious resolutions, but I humbly set them before you. Feel free to adopt any or none of them.
I’m sure Gentle Reader you have plenty of good intentions of your own. May you have all the luck in the world reaching for the stars. All my love,