More on Resolutions

For someone who doesn't plan on making any New Year's resolutions, far too many seem to be surfacing. I am resolved to learn more about lowering blood pressure. I've already mentioned that in a previous post. I am further resolved to expand my writing to include a novel that Emma and I have already planned out - 'The Revenge of the Slugs' is its working title. My murder mystery may yet return - in another format, perhaps. I am also resolved to continue in my approach to my working life and environment. It has work so far this past year and each day/week/month I am more able to cope with it and even to improve it for myself and others.

New Year's Day

On New Year's Eve, I thought that I would spend today in some sort of reflection. Instead, I spent it either passed out on the sofa or in bed. Fatigue caught up with me and until after dinner I could barely stay awake for more than 15 or 20 minutes. I seem to be back to normal physically now but I'm in no state to reflect.

(January 3rd)
Three days later and I'm not doing a lot better. I have had some time to think about what I should be reflecting on. Resolutions! I've decided not to have any this year. (However, to be truthful, resolutions are a hard habit to break!) Instead of resolutions, I'm trying to concentrate on what I might have learned over the last year.

I haven't learned how to lower my blood pressure. You're right, this is not something that I have learned, rather something that I've learned that I don't know how to do. Does it not seem odd to you, it does to me, that my doctor puts me on pills for high blood pressure but does not tell me how I might lower my blood pressure. I don't want to spend the rest of my life on pills. He tells me that one doesn't cure high blood pressure, just treat it. I'm not sure that I believe that. So, I have learned that I don't know how to lower my blood pressure which leads me to the decision (we won't call it a resolution) that I am going to find out this year.

I have been writing this blog for over a year now. I sometimes wonder why. However, if I am still doing it, I must have a need for it. I have learned that writing in times of stress and confusion helps me to work through them. Writing also allows me to explore certain ideas or situations. I have started to keep an off-line journal as well for those issues I don't want to share with the world. So, I will continue!

(More another day!)

My last visit of the year to Wisley

It wasn't a beautiful day when I got up. Nor was it the best of days for a walk but at least it wasn't raining. Wisley came to mind. It's the Royal Horticultural Society garden just 12 miles from us. I became hooked on the gardens earlier this year when my mother and I were passing them each day to go to and from the radiotherapy treatments in Guildford. At first we stopped off there to have a coffee or tea on the way home most days. Then we started to visit on the weekends. I would go there every Saturday if I could. Today we walked down to the Glass House, wandered around there, had lunch in the conservatory restaurant and then came home. Not a very exciting time but good for the soul.

The last day of classes! It's the holidays!

I hope that my title gives you the impression that I am excited that today is the last day of school. In fact I am writing this at home at 8:45 in the evening and the last day of school is over. We have had our dreadful 'We mustn't mention Christmas' assembly. To be fair, parts of it were quite entertaining. There was a great instrumental piece by the Jazz Messengers, a student-teacher-parent ensemble. There was a tragi-comic moment when a grade 1 student forgot his part and was fine about it until the head of school tried to console him. Suddenly, he seemed to realize that he had made a mistake and burst in to tears. She's obviously better at balancing books than dealing with children.

The rest of the day was taken up with eating (in the staff room, in the classroom, in the library), watching French videos and listening to Christmas music. I can't believe how tiring that can be!

Christmas Tree finally up!

Last year we didn't have a Christmas tree. I was just too sick to put it up. This year we have bought a new tree. It is smaller and thinner and fits nicely on our dining room table.

Are you planning your pilgramage to Lourdes yet?

This year, or is it next, you can get time off from purgatory if you make a pilgrimage to Lourdes during its anniversary year. I don't know if there is anything else to say about that!

Christmas is coming...and there's a shortage of goose fat!

One of the celebrity chefs (Nigella, I think) talked on their cooking show about goose fat and how it makes the best roast potatoes in the world! Now, there's a shortage in the supermarkets. Alas! I suppose I'll have to use duck fat instead or return to the olive oil of my past. Do you have a favorite method for making roast potatoes or any other part of the Christmas feast?

We're spending Christmas in Swansea with Naomi, James and Emma. We've decided that all presents will be kept to a £20-30 maximum and they must be bought on sale, at a charity shop or be made by the giver. It is less of a challenge than I thought and, with the exception of Cliff I seems to have finished.

Today, I sent off some presents to my sister's children in Cyprus and bought stamps for some of my cards. This is the area I want to work on nest year. I don't send many cards, and only to people I don't see often. However, there seem to be a lot nonetheless. I was wondering if it might be better to make contact with people throughout the year instead of only at Christmas. Would this be better? Would we develop a better relationship? Then again, there is the question as to whether or not people I don't see all that often care to keep in touch with me.

I have friends from my past who I try to keep in touch with. I write, I phone on occasion and they always seem happy to hear from me but never make contact themselves. What does this tell me? They're lazy? They don't really care? Keeping in contact is not such a big deal for them.