Hello 2022 - Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

I've had those words as an earworm to several days now. Anyway, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and also"Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow", today and every day.

And, should you know the tune, I apologise for infecting you with the earworm. Although there are probably worse things to have running around in your head.

This time of year the sun rises more or less opposite our bedroom window. The view might not be wonderful - all roof lines, television aerials, street lights, telegraph poles and BT wires, but one can look past and through them to see the glorious skies;

I have not made new resolutions this year - although I will continue with the old ones of  'write a page in the daily diary every the evening' and 'eat chocolate at least once a week'. These are not so much resolutions and habits now. The other one of delivering two bags of 'stuff' to the charity shop every month is a bit tricky at the moment.

Somewhere I read about the 'Texas Sharpshooter', who fired his gun at the barn door, and then painted  targets on it, with the bullseyes centred on the bullet holes. That seems a promising approach to making guilt-free 'resolutions' for this year.

Oh help. I have just googled this on the source of all knowledge and discovered that is is a description of one of many fallacies that abound in statistical analysis... nothing is so likely to wake the sleeping tigers in our household as yet another example of misuse of statistics on the news. 

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, my bullet holes in the barn door are a series of soft and flexible suggestions for myself for January...

1. Taking up the Active Repertoire Challenge at www.pianodao.com, which is always to have a couple of pieces that one can perform anytime, anyplace, without music, and without anxiety. At the moment my 'go-to' pieces all date from my childhood, when I memorised everything I ever learned to play as a matter of course. I plan to resurrect something a bit 'meatier' than the Bach Minuet in G, and also learn something new which I will probably be teaching later this year anyway.

2. Sketching throughout January

This is an exercise from (one of the many) books I have acquired over the years. It is a place we visited about 4 years ago on a bleak Spring day quite near to where we live. The house is in a hollow quarried out of the side of the hill, and I took the photograph from a sort of treehouse built around the trunk of a huge beech tree near the top of the steep slope behind the house.

3. Walking (off and on) throughout January - a nominal notion of maybe reaching a total of ten miles by the end of the month sounds attainable.

4. Writing more letters and postcards, sending more emails to friends and relatives. Walking to the post box and back is about half a mile, which should help me along the way to covering ten miles.

Our nearest post-box has been decorated for Christmas!