January 2018 – Spirit of Dee

Reflections on Dry January

31 January 20187 January 2019 Dee Leave a comment

Because it’s currently one of those weird transition times in life for me (everything is in flux due to the house move), January has sort of both flown and dragged at the same time. Not drinking for the month has been a lot easier than expected, but it’s felt different than expected, too.

Last time I went for a substantial period of time without alcohol (Lent 2011), I spent the whole time being irritated that I couldn’t drink when I was out or visiting people, making sure to try as many alcohol-free versions of beer and cider as I could find, and impatiently counting down the days till Easter, when I would be able to drink again. This time round has been a completely different experience, and I suppose that’s partly because my life has changed a lot without me realising. I don’t go out to pubs or round to people’s houses anywhere near as much as I did in my mid-20s, mostly because I’ve relocated twice in the intervening period and have maintained a much more pared-down social life than when I lived in my hometown. As such, I’ve only been out once in January (post-birthday, that is), to a dinner party, and I found I didn’t miss drinking while socialising at all. I’ve had no interest in alcohol-free fake booze, either – this is mainly due to being on Slimming World, as fake booze would just amount to useless extra syns when I’ve got perfectly good syn-free fizzy flavoured water to drink.

The biggest difference, though, is that I’ve not been itching to get back to drinking again, or really missing it much at all. I think there are a few reasons for this:

1. Not drinking is actually a more stable thing for me in terms of stress/anxiety levels

Obviously, it’s an extra-stressful time at the moment, and usually I’d deal with that by having a few ciders in the evening. What I found over Christmas, though, was that drinking was actually leading to more stress and anxiety the next day, which was the main reason I decided to give Dry January a try. While it’s sometimes felt a bit frugal/miserable to be spending weekend evenings without a drink, on the whole I think not drinking has been better for my mental state.

2. I feel healthier

Over Christmas, having even a couple of drinks every night, coupled with all the extra food I was eating, was making me feel ill. It’s nice to have avoided that sluggish/bloated/hungover feeling for a while.

3. My evenings have been more productive

I started the year with a lot of New Year Resolutions, mostly pertaining to daily habits like writing and keeping up with hobbies, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve been sticking to them. It’ll be interesting to see if this feels harder on an evening when I’m drinking alcohol.

4. I’m not doing the ‘was I drunk when I did/said that?’ dance

Well, that’s not quite true – I have caught myself doing it a few times, and then realised I couldn’t possibly have been drunk, because I’ve not drunk alcohol all month, obviously. This has been a) eye-opening – I’m surprising myself with the things that I assume I must have been drunk to have done/said (e.g. not actually remembering doing household chores that I have done – I was surprised to find that sometimes ‘not remembering’ is due to distraction/tiredness rather than alcohol use!) and b) alarming – it’s really made me realise how much mental energy I waste on trying to ascertain what state of intoxication I was in at any given time. And this is with my current ‘normal’ intake of about 10-15 units a week – I dread to think what it was doing to my mental state pre-Slimming World, when ‘normal’ was closer to 40 units a week.

5. My Slimming World results have been killer

Obviously, as I’ve not had to spend my syns on alcohol, I’ve been free to use them for other things…but I’ve found that I’ve not been that bothered about the other things, meaning that rather than struggling to stay under the 105-syn weekly limit, I’ve been averaging a much more SW-friendly 70-80 syns per week, meaning that my weight loss is really speeding along at the moment. This is definitely something I will be keeping in mind when I go back to drinking!

So, the original plan was to celebrate the start of Non-Dry February with a few of my birthday gift ciders after weigh-in tomorrow, but having realised that I’ve got a tattoo appointment the next day (which is starting to feel like the worst timed tattoo appointment of all time), I will be avoiding alcohol for an extra day so as not to thin my blood, meaning that I will be enjoying my ciders on Friday night instead, having gone exactly thirty days without a drink. It’ll be nice, but this month has really made me think about my drinking going forward, and what I can do to keep an eye on it.

Vintage fair haul: Vintage Clothing Sale at Northumbria SU

30 January 201830 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I went to my first vintage fair of 2018 today (and definitely not the last – there are another six coming up within the next month alone. Good thing vintage stuff can be so cheap!) Today’s fair was a small event held at the Northumbria student union, put on by Headlock Vintage. I was itching to get going with the vintage shopping this year, especially as I’ve been wanting to get some more interesting patterns into my mostly-solid-black wardrobe (the goth is still strong with this one).

Vintage clothing purchases — My new-to-me purchases from today. The material of the middle garment is making me think I should probably get round to buying an iron at some point.

The three things I ended up buying were light summer garments. I think this is my not-so-subconscious telling me I’m getting fed up of winter now. The black and white diamond material and the pink and black material are both capri trousers; the floral material is a dress. All black backgrounds, I know, but I think I’ve been successful with the ‘interesting patterns’ thing.

When I went up to pay, I also got a voucher for 20% off on the Headlock Vintage website, which was a nice bonus! I went home and promptly used it to grab myself a nice top. A blue top, without a hint of black. I am branching out, sort of.

Packing update

29 January 201829 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

Well, it feels like slow progress, but we are gradually getting the packing done for the move. The library is 95% done, the dining room about 50%, the bedroom maybe 20%. Actually, that doesn’t sound like much at all, thinking about it, and now I’m panicking slightly again. I’m hoping by the end of the weekend we’ll have broken the back of it. I’m also hoping the new tattoo I will have from Friday onwards won’t hinder me too much with the packing work. I didn’t really think about that when I booked the appointment in October.

I’m sort of regretting packing the DVDs first, because I keep coming across other stuff while packing that reminds me of a certain Doctor Who episode, and then I’m all like ‘ooh! Let me just grab that DVD to check that scene…oh.’ It’s probably for the best. I don’t need any more sources of procrastination right now.

’80s trenchcoats

28 January 201828 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I have far too many coats and jackets, because, like most things, I never throw them away. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve not yet thrown away the old winter coat that I wore to death in uni, the one that has a big rip in the front with stuffing coming out of it. It’s one of those collections that badly needs to be culled when we move into the new place, ’cause I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of hanging space for coats.

This didn’t stop me acquiring five new ones this winter, however. Three were gifts from my sister-in-law when she was clearing out her Edinburgh clothes stash, so I’m going to raise my hand and say ‘not responsible’ for those, but the other two were Etsy purchases. Having really got into vintage clothes shopping in the last couple of years, I’m developing a bit of an Etsy addiction.

Black vintage '80s trenchcoat — My black ’80s trenchcoat, the slightly warmer of the two I own. The beige one will be out in full force for the spring.

Thing is, I love ’80s trenchcoats. They’re much longer than their modern-day equivalents, so you don’t get the awkward hem battle when you’re wearing a skirt, and like most clothing cuts from the ’80s, it’s a much more dramatic silhouette, with nice wide shoulders and a nipped-in waist. I find that in the depths of winter, when you’re always wearing a coat outdoors, a bit of dramatic dressing is refreshing, especially after the sparkly Christmas stuff has all had to be put away.

It’s probably for the best that there’s only one more month left of winter, ’cause Etsy keeps tempting me with more and more coats in all the colours of the rainbow (and in the ’80s, it was a very brightly coloured rainbow). If only I had the space!

parkrun…and waiting patiently for my 50 shirt

27 January 201827 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I went to parkrun again this morning. Another solid sub-35, happy with that! Volunteering next week though, because I’ll be getting work done on my tattoo on Friday so will still be a bit tender on Saturday.

I qualified for my first parkrun milestone shirt when I did my 50th parkrun in October, but the company that did the T-shirts had been having problems with shirt stock so there was a huge backlog with people waiting for them. However, parkrun has now taken shirt production in-house so hopefully I shouldn’t have to wait too long for my shirt when they release them. I should at least get it before I qualify for my 100 shirt some time in early 2019!

2018 Ciders #6: Flat Tyre

26 January 20183 February 2018 Dee Leave a comment

Another birthday cider!

Flat Tyre, with its lovely pinky rhubarb hue.

This one happened to be on draught at the pub on my birthday – they often get interesting ciders in – and I ended up having a couple, ’cause the rhubarb flavour was so nice. I’d not had a pink cider since the strange beetroot one I discovered during the Wetherspoons summer cider festival of 2013; this one is a lot better.

Also, a kind friend brought me a can of the stuff (among other ciders) as a birthday present…

I really like the design of the Flat Tyre can!

…which means I’ve got one all ready for Non-Dry February. Looking forward to it!

Burns Night

25 January 201825 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

It’s Burns Night…and I’m not eating haggis. I know, I’m a bad Scot. But getting the stuff in England tends to be a right faff, which means acquiring a Burns Supper has become a lot more ‘interesting’ since I moved away from Scotland in 2011.

A brief history of my Burns Supper eating:

1985-2002: Burns Supper at home, cooked by parents, complete with horrible off-key chanter playing by my dad (who is a good musician but not a regular chanter player) as we ‘piped in the haggis’ and people reading the Selkirk Grace off a teatowel
2002-2011: as above, except that I no longer lived at home so went round to my parents’ specially; my dad had given up on the chanter playing by this point as well
2012: our first Burns Night living in Southampton – Geth bought extortionately-priced veggie haggis from a butcher and made a decent if not entirely presentable job of cooking it, but I felt SO HOMESICK
2013: went to eat at a cafe in Southampton where they were serving ‘haggis’ made out of tomatoes and had people onstage reciting really patronising attempts at ‘Scots’ poetry – had to leave before table flipping occurred
2014: still in Southampton; had friends round for Burns Supper, which was slightly ruined by Geth buying the wrong veg due to English supermarkets’ insistence on calling neeps by the wrong name (they call it ‘swede’ instead of ‘turnip’ for some reason, so he ended up getting something completely different that did not mash well at all)
2015: we were preparing for a stressful move from Southampton to Newcastle, so Burns Night, along with various other late winter celebrations like Valentine’s Day and Shrove Tuesday, fell by the wayside that year
2016-2017: took advantage of only living a 90-minute train journey away from Edinburgh to go land on my parents for Burns Night again, just like old times
2018: did vaguely plan to go up to Edinburgh…but house moving has struck again, and we’ve been too busy/tired to get organised

Dry January also means no toasts with whisky or Thistly Cross cider. I couldn’t even find any Diet Irn-Bru at the supermarket today. Living in England strikes again.

To make up for the lack of the haggis picture that would obviously accompany this post had I cooked any, have a link to Tam O’Shanter, my all-time favourite Burns poem.

Modern pop music

24 January 201828 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

At the start of 2010, with my interest piqued by the 2009 Christmas number one race between Joe McElderry and Rage Against The Machine, I decided that for the entirety of the 2010s, I would follow what was happening in the UK music chart, no matter how terrible the music was. I’ve always liked the way that pop culture nostalgia can be packaged neatly into decades, and I thought it would be cool to follow the evolution of one from start to finish.

Though I’m a list obsessive and had loved following the chart as a kid in the ’90s (the tail end of that happy period in UK pop music that roughly ended with the demise of Smash Hits and Top of the Pops), I’d lost interest during the ’00s, largely because I was Too Busy Being Goth. I was roughly aware that some of the more pop-punk and emo stuff that was featured in the rock magazines I read was in the charts around mid-decade, but I didn’t really have any idea of what was going on in pop music at all, other than what people were dancing to on Strictly.*

Eight years in, it’s been interesting, and catching up with the chart has become such an ingrained weekly habit that I expect I’ll keep doing it into the ’20s and beyond. 90% of 2010s chart music, IMO, is awful, but there has been some stuff I like – the more electro-pop direction of the early part of the decade was good, as was the brief folk-rock trend. Unfortunately the quality seems to have dipped a bit in the last couple of years and at the moment it all seems to be uninspiring EDM, offensively bad sampling of classic ’90s dance, bland forgettable pop-by-numbers and Ed Sheeran ballads. I can’t remember the last time there was an actual rock song in the charts.

Some stats, ’cause I like stats:

I’ve liked 250 songs from the 2010s enough to add them to my Spotify playlist.

42 from 2010
49 from 2011
26 from 2012
33 from 2013
27 from 2014
20 from 2015
20 from 2016
32 from 2017
1 from 2018 (so far).

My 2010s playlist does get a look-in when I’m in a more dance-y/upbeat mood, but obviously it doesn’t get anywhere near the amount of airtime my 1980s playlist gets. Nothing beats the ’80s for me as far as pop songs (and, let’s face it, most things) are concerned.

* I’ve never been Too Busy Being Goth to watch Strictly.

2018 Ciders #5: Stowford Press

23 January 201823 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

This is another one I had on my birthday. Twenty days without a drink! I don’t think I’ve gone sober for that long since the time I gave it up for Lent in 2011.

I first discovered Stowford Press in 2006, in the pub in the Somerset village where my father-in-law and stepmother-in-law live. I think at that point it was still particular to the area – maybe Westons hadn’t rolled it out nationally yet – but it soon became fairly ubiquitous, and nowadays you can get it anywhere there’s a good pub. It’s probably one of my favourite draught pints; it’s slightly sweeter and lighter than Strongbow, so it goes down a bit easier. My favourite local pub serves it, so this is another one I expect I’ll be drinking often this year.

’80s jumpers

22 January 201828 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I’ve been a lot colder than usual this winter. I’m guessing this is because I’ve lost a lot of weight and so I don’t have that cosy layer of fat keeping me warm anymore. Luckily, my love of vintage clothing fairs came to the rescue, and so in recent months I have become the shamelessly proud owner of a new collection: a collection of vintage ’80s jumpers.

Me in a vintage '80s jumper — This jumper was labelled a ‘Cosby jumper’ by the vintage stall that was selling it. No, that didn’t put me off it, though I did resist the slightly more garish ones that were next to it. I make no promises for next time, however.

In previous winters, I lived in hoodies. This was the most practical thing at the time, because the various sources of heating in the house, combined with my larger self’s tendency to overheat every time I did any activity that wasn’t sitting down, meant that I was constantly doing the too-hot-too-cold dance and needed something that was easy to throw on and off. This winter, though, I’ve found it’s most comfortable to wear something warm and cosy all day long, which is where the jumpers come in. They’re nice and hardwearing, and there’s never any shortage of them at vintage fairs, so I think they’re going to be my winter go-to for a few years to come.