The week in between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day is my favourite week of the year. Quiet days with lots of videogaming and Christmas food. (This year I’m going to try and make the following week special too… I never really get the chance to have a ‘birthday week’ as there’s always too much going on with New Year followed by the dreaded ‘back to school’ feeling, but I’m going to try. Focusing on this week first though!)
It’s been so long since my last stretch of free time that I’m a little overwhelmed by all the options, so I’m going to spend this afternoon planning them out so that I’m not dithering during the rest of the week and can just curl up with my chosen books/games/podcasts!
As a family we were very lucky with our haul again this year. Lots of things to enjoy later this week.
However, a Christmas gift came in the post today to cheer me up. I’ve always been in Scotland (where 2nd January is a public holiday) for New Year in the past, so have never known post to arrive on the 2nd of January before.
The gift was a tree decoration from our family friend Chris. We always see her at New Year but obviously couldn’t this time round.
I also made my own birthday cake for the first time ever, with instruction from Dad over video call. I’ll be able to tell you tomorrow if it turned out okay!
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Weeknd – ‘Blinding Lights’ Coldplay – ‘Christmas Lights’ Heaven 17 – ‘Let Me Go’
For years, I didn’t start new habits at New Year – or if I did, they never stuck for very long. However, for the last four years in a row, I have chosen something to focus on every year and have stuck with it. My life is a lot better as a result, and so I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick to my main 2021 goal too.
At the start of 2017, I started going to Slimming World. The accountability of the group setting enabled me to lose the five stone that I’d been trying to lose for nearly a decade, and though I’ve not managed to stay at target during the pandemic, I only have a stone to lose again this next year (which is a lot easier than five!). Life at a healthy weight is immeasurably more physically comfortable and something that I will never take for granted. Once Christmas eating is done, I’ll be back on the light meals again – I’m following a calorie-based approach rather than SW now, but I’ll always be thankful for the motivation it gave me.
At the start of 2018, I started this blog. It was always my aim to blog every day and so sometimes, especially during the empty year of 2020, blogging has felt like a bit of a chore. However, the habit of getting my words out into the world has given me confidence to do so in other ways, such as reading at poetry nights and publishing text adventure games. I love having the blog as it just feels so much more ‘mine’ than social media pages.
At the start of 2019, I got sober. I’ve mentioned this before but I feel so, so incredibly grateful that I managed to do this (and get the first difficult year of sobriety out of the way) *before* the pandemic hit – I really believe that things would have gone nowhere good if I’d still been drinking in 2020. It’s still not easy, but life is so much more stable than it was two years ago, and that has been so important over the last few months.
And at the start of 2020, after four and a half years of more sporadic running, I started a daily run streak. The start of a new decade seemed like a good time to do it, and I just wanted to see how long I could keep it up. Again, this was incredibly well-timed in terms of the pandemic, as I discussed yesterday. Whatever life throws at me, and however long it takes for races to come back, I’ll always have my run streak to keep me motivated.
On to 2021, then, and this year the main focus will be to get my house in order (literally). I already made a good start by spending a few weeks in November/December sorting out all the junk that I’d been hoarding upstairs since we moved in, but there’s a lot more to do, and a lot of daily habits that I need to instil. One of the major negative factors for my mental health is that I constantly feel that my house is dirty and untidy, and so I can never fully relax. Making time for my house projects this year, and keeping on top of the upkeep, will hopefully allow me to feel a lot better.
On a personal level, I’m feeling quite hopeful today. Not for 2021 as a whole, but for one day at a time, which is how I’ve managed all my other big life changes over the last few years.
I’m excited about tomorrow.
Another day, another New Year recipe I made myself for the first time. Lancashire hotpot is all about the crust, and it came out just right.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Deacon Blue – ‘Queen Of The New Year’ Tears For Fears – ‘Shout’ Abba – ‘Happy New Year’ Traditional – ‘The Blaydon Races’ Beach Boys – ‘Sloop John B’
Taking a break this evening from the old photos and returning to the here and now. Hogmanay, like the rest of 2020, feels a bit confusing and bittersweet. I think 2021 will eventually be better, but it will take some time, so I certainly don’t feel like celebrating tonight. Just a quiet evening at home with BBC Scotland on TV.
It’s my first ever New Year away from Scotland and so this year I had to learn to make Dad’s famous Hogmanay pizza for myself and Geth. Through the magic of video chat, Dad was able to help me with the dough, and on the whole it turned out really well. I hope I’m equally lucky with the Lancashire hotpot for New Year’s Day tomorrow.
Fish pizza for Geth, veggie for me.
I completed my first year of running every day this morning! A year ago, I noticed that Smashrun did a special virtual badge for running every day during a leap year, which was what motivated me to start my run streak. Today, I finally got the badge, and a bonus one to boot:
I’ve spent a large part of the year trying not to think about the Parallel Universe Where Coronavirus Didn’t Happen: the races, the gigs, the trips abroad, the time with family and friends. But there are other parallel universes that are a lot less happy – ones I only narrowly avoided due to sheer dumb luck, or the grace of God, or whatever you want to call it. The parallel universe where I hadn’t started a run streak on the first of January, and as a result didn’t run at all after March because I had no race-related motivation. The parallel universe where I hadn’t quit drinking, and ended up drinking more and more as a result of lockdown and stress. The parallel universe where loved ones weren’t able to stay safe this year.
I didn’t end up in the best timeline, not in the slightest. But I also didn’t end up in the worst. I survived, and I have hope. Bring on 2021. Even if I kind of wish we could just skip the first half of it.
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Proclaimers – ‘The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues’ Travis – ‘The Last Laugh Of The Laughter’
For part two of the New Year’s Day double, Geth and I got back in the car and headed out to Vogrie parkrun, which is south-east of Edinburgh.
One parkrun down, one to go!
It’s a really interesting experience running a second parkrun the same morning, making it up to 10k distance for the day! Obviously you get a break (typically spent frantically driving between parkrun locations), so it’s not quite the same as running an actual 10k, but I would imagine that most people take the second one easier. Geth and I certainly did – I came in more than three minutes slower than I had done at Portobello earlier that morning – although that was partly to do with the fact that Vogrie is very traily and hilly in places, and quite muddy on the day (requiring a lot of care on downhill sections!).
While I’m not ruling this one out for future New Year’s Day doubles, I think I would prefer to visit it in the summer, when there’s less chance of mud. It’s unlikely to happen this summer, of course, but maybe next year!
Geth and I managed quite a few new parkruns during our Christmas trip to Edinburgh. We’d only ever previously done the main Edinburgh parkrun at Cramond while visiting Mum and Dad, but this time round we found ourselves with multiple reasons to go further afield. One of these was my desire to mark my first sober Hogmanay with my first ever New Year’s Day parkrun double the following morning – and the main Edinburgh parkrun doesn’t run on New Year’s Day, having done its special event on Christmas Day instead! As such, I had to select two alternative local parkruns for my Edinburgh-based double.
Another pop-up sign. I’m collecting a lot of these photos!
The first of these was Portobello in north Edinburgh. I’d been meaning to do this one for a while but had never got round to it – the lure of Cramond and its lovely flat, scenic course is usually too strong. It turned out to be a nice fast three-lapper round the very pretty Figgate Park. The course isn’t as flat as Cramond, but it’s a lot more shielded from the wind! Geth fell in love with Portobello parkrun and immediately planned to do it regularly during the several weeks that he was (at the time) planning to spend in Edinburgh for work in May. For obvious reasons, that trip won’t be transpiring, but I still hope that we’ll both get to do Portobello parkrun again sooner rather than later.
Geth and I are back in Newcastle after spending eleven days in Edinburgh for Christmas and New Year. It’s been lovely, but it felt like a long time to be away from home, so maybe next year we’ll do two separate trips – it’s not that far to drive.
We did one last Scottish parkrun this morning – back to the main Edinburgh parkrun at Cramond, which was my first ever tourist run on Christmas Eve 2016. It was busier today than I’ve ever seen it, but then I’ve never been there in the first week of January before!
Tomorrow will mostly be spent getting things unpacked, washed and put away. I’ve got one more day left to enjoy the Christmas decorations before I have to take them down on Monday.
Not quite an OOTD: my parkrun 100 top arrived today! Not quite in time for today’s run as I had hoped, but a lot quicker than the seven months it took for my 50 top to arrive. Excited to wear this next Saturday!
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Boomtown Rats – ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’
I like to have a quiet day on the 2nd of January, in between the madness of New Year’s Day and my birthday. It’s nice to have the downtime, but I do always end up feeling a bit maudlin. The first half of my thirties has just flown by, and I imagine that if anything the second half will go quicker.
I went out for a quick gentle run this morning, something that will be a daily habit for the next while. It was nice to turn my legs over after yesterday’s exertions, and I feel a lot less sore of calf than I have been on days after parkruns recently.
I don’t really feel ready for my birthday, and I don’t really want midnight to come. It will, of course. It always does.
Sort of an OOTD: giving my new Lonely Goat top a run out.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ludwig van Beethoven – ‘Ode To Joy’ Hans Zimmer – ‘This Land’ Rihanna – ‘Diamonds’
New Year’s Day is also my blog’s birthday! I started my rambles on here two years ago today. I’ve not had a lot of time for long review posts over the last couple of months, but I love writing on here every day and documenting my life. I have a few things left over from 2019 that I’ll be posting about over the next couple of weeks, but after that I’ll be starting a whole new series of posts for 2020!
I’ve had a lovely New Year’s Day. Geth and I got up early to do the parkrun double this morning, driving to a couple of parkruns that we’d not done before. After that, Auntie Chris arrived for the family tradition of exchanging New Year gifts, and we had a good evening of eating – Dad made Lancashire hotpot for the New Year meal, as is traditional, and I was so hungry after all the running that I ate a whole half of the veggie hotpot! I need to avoid making this a habit once I get into the long marathon training runs, or I might end up eating the whole of Newcastle.
I’m doing RED (Run Every Day) for an undecided period of time, so I’ll be nipping out for a quick mile first thing tomorrow morning. Other than that it will be a very quiet day!
(I’ve not had time to post my New Year Resolutions today – will try and sort that out tomorrow.)
Not quite an OOTD: Geth and I got Lonely Goat (our running club) tops as New Year presents to ourselves. Looking forward to taking this out for a quick spin tomorrow morning!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Tomohito Nishiura – ‘Searching For Clues’ Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’ Jesse Llande and Mel Smith – ‘Poor Old Father Christmas’ The Lancashire Hotpots – ‘Purple Zone’ The Boomtown Rats – ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ The Boomtown Rats – ‘Rat Trap’ Jason Paige – ‘Pokémon Theme (Gotta Catch ‘Em All)’
Today is the day that we say goodbye to the 2010s and look forward to the 2020s. What will it bring? Hopefully the music will be better (I’ll be doing a whole post about that in a few days’ time).
As such, it was wholly appropriate (I feel anyway) that I spent the day playing with tech from a totally different decade. Dad tested the old five-and-a-half-inch floppies in the drive for the BBC Micro, and they worked! I’ve now identified all the old games on the disk, which was a real blast from the past. There are games on there that I haven’t even thought about for thirty years.
I’m having a quiet evening in with the family for my first sober Hogmanay, and it feels great. I’m looking forward to welcoming in 2020 with alcohol-free fizzy wine and Dad’s traditional Hogmanay pizza, and I’m also very excited about doing my first ever New Year’s Day double parkrun tomorrow morning.
Not an OOTD: Target Practice, a Micro game from 1983. I couldn’t quite work out the controls for this one but it looks nice!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Tomohito Nishiura – ‘Searching For Clues’ Kuana Torres Kahele, James Ford Murphy and Napua Greig-Nakasone – ‘Someone To Lava’ Blur – ‘End Of A Century’ Travis – ‘The Last Laugh Of The Laughter’
