New Year’s Resolutions

I made some this year. Last year I grouched and grumbled about how much I hated the New Year and that resolutions were crap and that you broke them anyway and you may as well make them any time during the year; like March for instance. But the truth of the matter is that I, not New Years was in a pretty bad place last year*. This year I made them and I’m probably going to break them, but hey ho...

The Ancient Babylonians celebrated New Year over 4000 years ago (probably not by getting pissed and slurry humming to the tune of Auld Lang Syne). They began the year by resolving to return things they had borrowed... Mmm that means I need to find that Ska CD I borrowed off Jane ages ago and I still haven’t read Claire’s books and maybe I should return her screwdrivers...

The Romans seeked forgiveness from enemies ... Well I don’t have any enemies as such, just people who I have little or no respect for and I think tootling up and saying: “Excuse me, could you forgive me for having no respect for you,” might cause more problems.

The Chinese clean their houses, maybe that’s why Mum always spent New Year’s Eve in a frenzy with Mr. Sheen. Anyway, I can put a big fat CHECK by that one. I didn’t start until six last night, but I did finally dust, hoover, change sheets, scrub and just generally tidy up the wee abode. Now I’ve just got to keep it up. I did also consider getting a cleaner, but then I realised the benefit of starting in the evening is that all the cleaning was accompanied by large glasses of vino.

Nowadays health related resolutions are numero uno on the list. Now I do have a gym related one on my list and I was reading some article in the Guardian (during the HOURS I had sitting at the airport) about how the gym membership is the biggest waste of money ever. On this occasion I do actually think that joining in January is nuts, I joined last April and first of all I went three times a week, then I didn’t go for two months because I was on holiday and moving and since September I have gone once a week. Not bad I think, although my new year’s resolution is to go TWICE a week. Realistic I think, although when Lise called last night I told her that resolution was starting on Saturday (well I had the cleaning to do first).

My last two resolutions are the difficult ones. It’s easy to write everyday when I am on holiday, but then work kicks in and it becomes so easy to come home and veg out in front of the telly watching rubbish. Anyway, even if it’s fifty words a day I’ve got to do it.

The last one... mmm, well I’ll let you guess, it’s a pretty obvious one.

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* Having said that I really do dislike New Year’s Eve; that pressure to go out and enjoy yourself when actually the most enjoyable New Years have been quiet ones indoors with friends; although having said that, I also enjoyed strutting my stuff like a teenager at ‘The Tower’ in Carlow this year because the band were pretty good (actually they were very good) and it was different.