Does anyone make New Year resolutions any more that don’t involve going to the gym/losing weight? (yawns, puts feet up with latest Byatt, chooses another morsel from the Hotel Chocolate box while kitten settles on lap against warm laptop).
The newspapers are full of dieting and getting fit plans but they are the hackneyed way to fill features pages at this time of year.
This is peak time for gyms. If you’re a gym owner who’s not making money now, you never will. Signing people for for a year when they only ever attend for two weeks max and then forget the bank direct debit bleeding £50 out of their account every month for sweet F.A.
The first time I signed up for a free-trial two weeks all-inclusive gym membership, I got a virus which put me out of action for a month. Never even set foot in the place. I think it was a sign.
I have been since to a gym but only for specific purposes; to be transformed into someone unfeasibly lithe and lovely (total failure) and to work a damaged knee (success!).
My local gym is an airless sweaty slightly smelly place where men grunt and thin girls with concave thighs and Essex facelifts hog the treadmills. I hate it but then I still bear a grudge against my ‘personal’ trainer Shane. I told him I wanted legs like Tina Turner. He gave me legs like Tessa Sanderson which might have gone all Sir Chris Hoy. While admiring his huge achievements and rock-hard huge thighs… pause for respectful memory of Sir Chris in all his glory winning three gold medals on the track at the Beijing Olympics……were not the required look.
I thought I’d just get down a few things I wanted to change this year and the list kept growing. Reading it makes me realise what a spoiled, unrealistic brat I am so that’s probably a good first step to humility – if only that was on the list but it’s not.
Is it best to keep it short? Eg “Achieve stuff while becoming a nicer, more caring generous person.”
Nah. As an optimist with a firm hand holding the struggling, whiny pessimist’s head bubbling below the surface of the green sludge of reality, it’s got to be the long list really but the main requirement for achieving all those resolutions is going to be introducing the three-day weekend or sleeping for three hours less every day.
As that’s pretty much impossible, I’m going with no1, 2, 3, 4 and well, why not, 5. And definitely 9.
Oh and 6 and wait a sec… got to include 7 and 8 as they kind of go together and they really need the complement of 12, 16, 17, 18.
Not sure where part-time hedonist fits into those though, and have to keep that, which means including 19 to 24 excepting the Excel thing. I am reluctant to Excel with an upper case E. It involves equations and tiny mystic symbols.
Number 20 is probably the most important one. Yes, I think that covers just about everything.
Do-able? Good grief, yes! Now, is it going to be the white lime truffle or the champagne parfait…?
New Year Resolutions
1 Be more organised
2 Write more
3 Cycle more
4 Attempt wheelies
5 Read more
6 Care more
7 Be ambitious
8 Fart about less
9 Go to Tour de France. Take Welsh cakes for Geraint.
10 Get piano lessons
11 More dog-training for kittens. Leo – lead.
12 Sort out study
13 Be more serious appropriately
14 Laugh more, inappropriately
15 Don’t forget buffalo mozarella
16 Develop gravitas
17 Practice dignity
18 Make plans
19 Visit galleries more often
20 Laugh in the face of failure
21 Tweak the nose of irritability
22 Take more photos manually
23 Do Excel and PowerPoint
24 Go sea kayaking
25 Go canoeing
26 Wild water kayaking, Cardiff
27 Try proper rowing
28 Use graphics pad more
29 Do sponsored charity bike ride.
30 Find wedding outfit.
31 Plant spring bulbs before December.
32 Bag a monro near Loch Lomond
33 Go to Wales more often
34 Complete Cotswold Way
35 Do Wye Valley walk, well, at least start it.
36 Go swimming with turtles
37 See more Shakespeare at Stratford
38 Watch more sunsets
Boadicea's Chariot 
I think to No 6 you should add “about myself”. This then allows the chocolate selection and the kitten cuddling. Going to the Tour de France would be good too.
What is a “monro” when it’s at home, Jan? I’ve never heard the term and Google doesn’t help. 😕
“Munros” are the highest of Scotland’s mountains, Bearsy. Over 200 of them, I think. They have to be over a certain height to qualify for the designation.
It’s a bit alarming to hear that the flood waters are now lapping round Brisbane. Hope your area’s still safe. Otherwise remove Boadicea and other valuables to an upstairs room.
39. Join human race.
Mountain climbing in Scotland…. try googling that, Bearsy?
Oh! I see Shoena has already filled you in on that one. Sorry.
Sheona – That’s a “munro”; was ‘monro’ a typo, or can you ‘bag’ mountains? 😕
Aussie houses don’t have “upstairs rooms”, they’re what you would call “bungalows” – if they’re “high set” they’re on stilts (“Queenslanders”) and you’re laughing, if they’re “low set” get out the sandbags! 😎
I think “monro” may have been a typo. You can certainly “bag” mountains. The late Labour leader, John Smith, whose early death opened the way for Brown and Blair, was someone who was doing that. A lot of climbers want to be able to say they’ve climbed all the munros.
We’ve seen newsreel footage of Rockhampton with quite a few houses on stilts, including one where the ninety-year old owner was still living. A doughty lady. Hope you are “high set”.
OK, thanks, Sheona. Nope, we’re low set! 😦
Nice post Janh. The only resolution I make these days is to make it through the following year. 🙂
Janh1, I’ve just read in Scotland on Sunday” that the 2017 Tour de France could start in Scotland. If you can wait till then, you could bag your munro and watch the race in one trip.
Drat and double drat and a great fat “ooops.” Now I’m going to get into real trouble with Mr Mackie. I might have to offer him the Clootie Dumpling of Penitence.
Seriously, Sheona??!!! That would be awesome on both counts. The terrain in Scotland would be fabulously scenic and testing for the peloton. They already hold the Mountainbiking World Cup at Fort William.
Greetings Tina! 🙂 Succinct as always. I don’t think it would want me.
The article I read only mentioned the opening time-trial in Scotland, janh1, but it’s early days yet. We’ll have to wait and see. Apparently 2013 is already booked in for Corsica, which has some scenic bits too, though the riders might have to dodge bullets as the locals sort out their differences.
Wicked. Lol.
For the past few years, my only New Year’s Resolution has been to not make any New Year’s Resolutions, because I know they will only be broken, either by necessity or indolence, within a couple of weeks of January!
Och, janh1 I had checked your list of New Year Resolutions and did not see one for ‘Learn to spell’ so I assumed that you did not see it as an objective for 2011 and I wasn’t going to say anything.
In any case, I just thought that you might be getting confused between your Munros, your Marilyns and your Murdos. For #32, why not try Ben Lomond which is, funnily enough, right next door to Loch Lomond? It’s a Munro, a Marilyn and a Murdo so it’s a 3 for the price of 1 offer.
Mind, coming from the flat lands of Wales, you might not want to go as high as a Munro straight away. There’s a lot of Corbetts, the shorter version, around Loch Lomond.
Ah John but I was might have been thinking Matt, my dad’s favourite singing bus driver 😉 Whatever, I have done a few Corbetts which were close in height, Goat Fell on Arran and Ben Ledi in the Trossachs. We might have bagged one had we climbed Ben Vorlich but our ageing springer was too knackered after Ben Ledi. 🙂
Sensible Tocino, although to be on the safe side you should go week to week… 😉
Failure is nothing to be ashamed of FEEG. I’ll be lucky if I get five of these achieved but the aspirations were there, if nothing else!
Oh, they are only planning the prologue, then Sheona. Bit of a pity not to have a mountain stage but I suppose it’s not called the Tour de FRANCE for nothing. Still going to be a huge crowd-puller for Scotland and for cycling!
So the Scots are planning for 2017, eh? John’s long-termism is obviously endemic!
Janh1, I’ve just found this on the BBC news website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12149629
Snap – well, nearly. First with the news Sheona! Well done and thanks! 🙂
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/7031/Scotland-to-bid-for-Tour-de-France-start.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+velonation_pro_cycling+(Cycling+News+%26+Race+Results+|+VeloNation.com)