Happy New Year, everyone.
Have you made your New Year resolutions? Last year I resolved to take up a raft of self-improvements including eating less, spending less and exercising more. But here I am a year later no thinner, richer or fitter. And seemingly no wiser as I have drawn up a new list for 2022.
This year my resolutions include the vow to make more lists. I have to, otherwise I forget what I’m supposed to be doing. I've got to that age where I forget what day it is, where I've left my car in the car park or why I've walked into rooms - usually to look for my glasses which I've put down but can't remember where. At least my friends know their secrets are safe with me. As soon as they've imparted some hush-hush piece of information, I've forgotten who is doing what with whom and where by the time I've ordered my second glass of wine. Which reminds me. I must add "drink less red wine" to that resolutions list.
I am the woman who prepared a delicious casserole for the slow cooker before going out for the day. I returned home anticipating the aroma of beef, red wine, garlic, mushrooms and onions wafting in the air, only to find I had forgotten to turn the darn thing on. At least the following day's tea was all prepared.
But it's not the forgetting that bothers me. It's the remembering that I've forgotten something but can't quite bring it to mind. I have a Bermuda Triangle of a brain with information going in never to be seen again.
So, where was I? Oh yes, New Year resolutions. I blame the failure of most of my resolutions on my sister-in-law. Every New Year's Eve we stay at her house for a bit of do, usually partying all night long and falling into bed somewhere around dawn. By the time the sun has risen on New Year's Day the resolution to stick to a diet, not to drink too much and not to bore people to tears with my "witty" anecdotes have all fallen by the wayside.
But, as one wag on Twitter wrote: "Forgot to make resolutions? Just write out everything you did last night and at the beginning add the word 'stop.'" Apt advice indeed.
This year, in a triumph of hope over experience, I am determined to get fit. One friend sighed when I told her my intention. She, skinny as a rake I should point out, said: "What for? It's not as if you have to outrun the law or anything." She paused, "You don't, do you?" It's true I'm not on the FBI's most wanted list, but there are other benefits of getting fit apart from being able to beat a policeman in a 100 metre dash. I want to be able to fit into nice clothes, go for long walks in the countryside without feeling as if I’m trying to climb Everest and to live to a 100, even if by then I have forgotten my name.
