Is it January already?

A convivial evening finished at 11.45, when it occurred to us that midnight really is quite an arbitrary time to kiss and wish each other well, and we could actually do it at any time. 2008 arrived with me reading quite uninteresting emails and not replying to them.

I took the short walk this morning, only 2.5 miles. Sterner folks than I went 4.5 or 8 miles, but I had already downed mugs of red pepper and of celery soup by the time they came back. It was a fine party and we finally roamed home - I drove, I'd only had a glass and a half of wine and that had been more than two hours previously - just as Tilly was wondering if her dinner would be served late. She had some tasty snippets of ham sprinkled on top as recompense for her momentary anxiety.

I looked back on last January's posts, for I remembered that, for the first time in my life, I had Made Resolutions. I was under the impression that they hadn't been fulfilled, so I am pleased to find that there were more of them than I had expected. They were -
I. I will start building my wall.
2. I will take clarinet lessons again.
3. I will carry on with broadening my musical range...I really will get to the Aldeburgh Festival this year.
4. I will (all being well) continue to be frivolous.
5. I'll get to London more.

1. It took until October before the Sage decided on what bricks to buy. So, whilst the footings are in, and some of the paths are built in the kitchen garden extension, the wall itself isn't built.
2. This was my own fault. I felt that I should practise, so as not to be hopelessly bad, before arranging lessons. But without a deadline, there was no incentive. However, the delay has had a sensible outcome, because I have realised that going to a tutor some 15 or more miles away would be foolish, and I'm going to investigate the possibilities more locally. Indeed, I will email the High School head of music this week and ask her advice - though I won't have time to start for a few weeks.
3. Oh yes, I've certainly been doing this. I have a quite confusing range of music now. And I did indeed go to three concerts at the Festival last June.
4. Frivolous. I think so. I am quite as frivolous as is appropriate for a woman of my age.
5. Yup, did that too. I didn't do any shopping, but was nicely sociable and visited some excellent exhibitions.

Right, so 1 and 2 will be renewed, and I rather like the others, so would like to continue with them too...but maybe that doesn't count as Making Resolutions, for it would simply be Carrying On as Before. And I've already started the cycling, so that can't be declared as an intention either, nor the weight loss, as it didn't all go back on over Christmas.

It'll have to be this then.

3. Severely weed my shelves of once-read paperbacks, that I bought many years ago, in the days when I bought several books a week (yeah, eventually I saw sense and rejoined the library), and will never look at again.

Actually, that would be quite an achievement.