Friday 1st January 2021 - 8th Day of Christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As I said previously, last year has taught me not to MAKE plans, just yet anyway. I do have travel hopes for a possible future date; they are relatively modest in scope, if not financially. I'm talking about a river cruise, or two, or three; like Amsterdam, Bordeaux, or the Rhine?

Other daily routines and resolutions are more problematic. I don't know why I am so attracted to 'daily lists' and routines, which I know I will never manage keep.

• lose weight - exercise every day
• write every day
• draw and paint every day
• practise the piano every day
• go for a walk every day
• do some housework every day

Maybe a good resolution is to not mind if I don't do these every day? Just a couple of times a week? Keep these things ticking over? 

Here are my official resolutions for this year which I think I will manage to keep (I have a policy of not setting myself up for failure); 

• write up the day in my new diary, as I have been doing now for seven years.   
• eat chocolate several times a week
• enjoy the pleasure of life singly (this was suggested by a friend and is a really good idea - the number of times I have absent-mindedly eaten biscuits or drunk coffee with hardly any memory of the taste - what a waste.)

Finally;

I found this poem on twitter - so far no sign of the author (but if you know, please comment and I'll acknowledge)

I won’t arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

I’ll sanitise the doorknob and make a cup of tea.

I won’t go down to the sea again; I won’t go out at all,

I’ll wander lonely as a cloud from the kitchen to the hall.

There’s a green-eyed yellow monster to the North of Kathmandu

But I shan’t be seeing him just yet, and nor, I think will you.

While the dawn comes up like thunder on the road to Mandalay

I’ll make my bit of supper and eat it off a tray.

I shall not speed my bonnie boat across the sea to Skye,

Or take the rolling English road from Birmingham to Rye.

About the woodland, just right now, I am not free to go

To see the Keep Out posters or the cherry hung with snow.

And no, I won’t be travelling much, within the realms of gold,

Or get me to Milford Haven. All that’s been put on hold.

Give me your hands, I shan’t request, albeit we are friends

Nor come within a mile of you, until this virus ends.

There's a cheerful start to the year - but yes, it did make me laugh. 

view through arch at Field Place, Leith Hill, Surrey

One day....

n twitter