Happy New Year everyone. I hope you enjoyed the Christmas and New Year celebrations and that Covid didn’t interfere too much. We had a better start to this year than last when Charlie had Covid, but somehow I didn’t get the feeling of a new beginning the way I usually do at New Year – a tabula rasa just waiting for me to put all my exciting goals for the year on.
I stopped making resolutions a few years back as I never really managed to stick to them, so decided to set goals instead. Is there a difference you ask? To me, yes, there is. Resolutions are all about improving myself – eat less, drink less, exercise more – you get the picture, while goals are like a tick list for the year – finish novel, paint the house, go on holiday in June, etc. I like tick lists, so this suited me better, and I usually completed most of them.
This year felt different and I’m not sure why. I have plenty of things I want to do, but I suppose Covid has made me realise it doesn’t matter how many tick lists I write, there are always things that none of us can plan for – a world-wide pandemic, sickness, and death not to mention global warming. Do I sound a bit defeated and depressed? Well, unbelievably, I’m anything but. I feel a great sense of release. This year I’ve made no resolutions, set no goals other than to go with the flow and try to be happy with whatever happens. Let me know how you feel about resolutions and tick lists. I’d love to hear from you.
Ten years ago, yesterday, 8th January 2012, Charlie and I set off for a gap year. I was 62 and Charlie 60. We went to Australia and France. I looked out the photograph album and found the blog we had written about Australia on a blogging site called Get Jealous, which was especially for people like us who were travelling and wanted to keep in touch with family and friends. Although Facebook existed back then, we knew nothing about it, and it wasn’t widely used. As I’m not sure what to put on my weekly posts just now, I thought I would share some of that blog with you over the next few weeks. Who knows, you might decide to take a gap year yourself.
Stay safe.
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MARION MACDONALD 