New Year's a-coming.....

White chocolate - the only choc I can face right now but
it's always been my favourite

Another year comes crawling to an end. I'm looking out at frosted roofs and am surrounded by the aftermath of Christmas food - all those chocolates, biscuits, cake, nuts that I've hardly touched because of the nasty cold I've had. I did enjoy the food on Christmas Day but then as I began to feel worse my appetite faded and I couldn't taste much. So there's hardly a dent in the goodies and I'm relying on the boys to chomp through a great deal of it!

With New Year approaching one thinks about good intentions. The same ones come each year, fitness, diet (well, once my appetite returns that will no doubt go out of the window) but really how can January be the ideal time to diet with all the chocs still around? It's also cold and all you want is comfort food. Basically it's a non starter. We all know what we should be eating, what's healthy, it's the willpower or desire to succeed that we most lack. If I really wanted to do I could do it because I know I am good at goal setting and when I really make up my mind I am also determined. So the fault is mine. I'm not bothered enough! True, I am not overweight in the strict sense but I also know I am carrying more weight than I am happy with and I am not as fit as I once was. I also eat the wrong things but I guess the good thing is that I don't eat the quantities some do. But if you ask my friends it is always me who never passes on the biscuits/cake at girlie get-togethers. It is a standing joke, 'oh Heather will have one.' I have a reputation to uphold! (My excuse is that if the hostess has gone to the trouble of baking/splitting a pack of bickies, someone has to do it justice!).

Anyway, I'm getting far off the point, whatever that was to begin with! Ah, yes good intentions (aka New Year's Resolutions). I haven't got a written statement sworn and witnessed just ideas in my head (nice to know I have something in there). So here we are - each year I try to learn something new whether that is a new skill or just facts, I set a few goals for my writing (more coming on that on my other blog) and think about what I am doing now and whether I need to adjust anything, whether there is an itch that needs scratching. One of them is that every year I promise myself to go to the International Horse Show at Olympia. Every year I forget. It falls so close to Christmas when my life is in panic mode and my diary is choc-a-block. I need to plan for this and far ahead. When I suddenly remember it is already on TV and it's too late. I've always adored horses. I never managed to get tickets to the equestrian events at the London Olympics, though I did once have a great day at Hickstead. I think Harvey Smith was still jumping then. Another time my mum's cousin got us tickets for the Royal Tournament (he was then in the RAF). Not only was I impressed by all those guys in uniform (that's another story) but I loved the performances, especially the horses charging around the arena with gun carriages. So you can see this Horse Show has been on the agenda for a very long time.

In this coming year I shall hit my 60th birthday. I don 't want a party, maybe a holiday but I wondered if I should draw up a list of things I must do in 2015 - not quite a bucket list, but similar. The list is in the early stages and I'm not going to reveal what's on it.....at least not yet.

As for what I want to learn in 2015 there are a few ideas rolling around and will probably coincide with the 'other list'.

Whatever you do, whatever good intentions you aim for, I hope you will be successful but more important stay healthy, laugh a lot and be good to yourself and others. Can't go far wrong with that.

HAPPY NEW YEAR