You’ve had a few weeks off, you’ve eaten too much and not drunk enough. You may have been daft enough to make Resolutions. Either way, it’s time to celebrate what you did do, moan about what you didn’t do, and set your goals for 2014 here on Uborka Fitness Club.
Gordon and I are racing to 250 miles (I’m winning). Does anyone want to join us?
It’s mid-January, and time to get meditative. While the world outside (that is, twitter) bemoans the gloom and the post-christmas slump, Casa Uborka is cheerful and positive. This has partly been achieved by Pete using the up the annual leave he didn’t take over christmas, to work a 2 day week for as much as January as he can manage; and partly because I thought I was going to be worried about money, but a couple of jobs have come in so I’m not; and probably some other happy stuff as well.
Here’s a lovely idea: One Little Word to drive your year, to help you stay focused, to encapsulate how you want to feel. I found this via Relly’s thought for the day on the Pastry Box Project; it seems that meditation and philosophy is all around.
I’m still thinking about my word.
I have a few different hobbies all of which, I think, can be described as pretty geeky. One of these is Napoleonic re-enactment. Generally this involves me spending a few weekends a year sitting around in fields in funny clothes drinking tea/wine (depending on the time of day). There are various things that attract people to re-enacting but for me it’s all about the people and getting away from the stresses and strains of modern life. There’s something about changing into ‘kit’ at the beginning of weekend that lets me switch off from all of things I normally spend my time worrying about. Also you get to meet a whole range of people in a setting that means you don’t have the normal tools to judge them – which is a great leveller. I’m not one of life’s outgoing types and I cope far better with situations where there is easily identified common ground to start off conversations.
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Some people sell their old mobile phones. Some donate them to charity. Some just throw them away. What do I do? Well, I don’t know yet.
I’m spending lots of January chilling. I’m on a kind of belated Christmas holiday.
Today, for example, I’ve spent pretty much the entire day in my pyjamas watching the first two Lord Of The Rings films with Karen and Maisy.
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I am in semi-rural North Kent. Just outside the M25. Definitively NotLondon.
I like it here. There’s lots of sky and the fields are long.
I went for a run today. The first time since the epically rain-sodden Big Fun Run last October. It was a beautiful day. I discovered that something which I thought was a school was actually a community centre, and the play park behind it which I thought was part of the school is part of a community park, so there’s somewhere walkable that I can take Junior to, when he’s desperate to go out and run around and the garden isn’t enough for him.
I also found a nature reserve, and as I climbed through the woods, I came out into a field, where I could see all the way across the village.
Field and Village
Sitting on my arse contemplating starting a Mindfulness course to enhance the delights of post C word January. The days are getting longer. I’ve just seen my first Snowdrop. The daffs I replanted last year are already breaking through and we are planning to move to our new home filled with south facing light.
Fuck me, shoot me now! All this optimism is turning me into a benign twat.
Welcome all. We’ve hired a cricket pavilion for Lisa’s birthday, there’s a band playing Brown Eyed Girl, and what more do you need.
First to the bar is Lyle, who has chosen a drink to channel the typical fearlessness of a teenager – a Kamikaze. Like a typical teenager, upon being asked to give advice to Lisa, he ignored the brief and just remarked upon her age instead, so top marks for nailing the character stereotype there.
Meanwhile Pockless is gulping down a pint and living the dream. The band, at this point, segue into My Generation and he leaps up. “I love this one!” He will be forever young. Graybo is right alongside there, echoing the sentiment, and drinking a Jagerbomb because his parents are picking him up in two and a half hours which doesn’t offer much time to get smashed.
Drinking champagne are the birthday girl herself, and also Asta and Clair. The disco lights here are very bright, so Asta’s advice to wear sunscreen might be quite useful after all. The three of them disappear off into the corridors (you haven’t forgotten that it’s a cricket pavilion, have you?) to try and source a bottle, and we won’t see them again until 1am.
Ms Gammidgy just drinks this and sulks because her parents don’t understand her, and why oh why is everyone else at school cooler than her? Things will be so much better when she’s grown up. Then she’ll be able to jump on the furniture and eat ice cream every day and no-one will ever, ever, ever tell her what to do.
Sevitz was apparently one of those kids who, at 16, desperately wanted to be 62, so he’s drinking an Old-fashioned and probably talking to someone’s mum about house prices. “Hold the old”, he says with a wink, and later on there’s a very good chance that he will be doing exactly that. Attaboy.
Krissa shows up fashionably late, as ever, but then she does have to travel the furthest, so that’s okay. Her first visit to the bar was somewhat stressful – after finding out exactly how much the “finest wine” would cost, and comparing that to the £15 that her parents gave her for drinks, she’s been forced to downgrade slightly and is now enjoying a glass of just “wine” and looking forward to the day when she’s a rich grown-up and can pour Châteauneuf-du-Pape on her cornflakes every morning.
The bar is understaffed and struggling. What they definitely don’t need right now is someone ordering a hot drink. But there’s always one, isn’t there? Becki orders a hot ginger and lemon tea at precisely the same moment as Karen orders a Mojito, and the whole thing just basically grinds to a halt for ten minutes.
Shortly the police are going to show up and the cricket pavilion is going to lose its license for selling all this booze to 16 year olds. So, drink up.
