Welcome. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter (Fifty From Fifty / Life After Fifty) and you missed the last post there I’ve moved you across to my blog as I will be discontinuing my writing there. I hope you’ll stick around but if you don’t want to then there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. If you did see the last post then you’ll already know what is going on and hopefully you are receiving this.
I noticed that there were a couple of duplicate subscriptions (i.e. people already subscribing here with the same email as the newsletter), and have tried as far as possible to make sure you’re not on the list twice! If however you subscribed to both using different email addresses then it’s possible you will get two copies and will need to unsubscribe from one of them. It’s not a perfect system but overall the move seems to have gone okay.
Right, enough housekeeping.
An Update from the First Couple of Weeks of January
I find it hard to believe that three weeks have passed since Christmas already and I’m not altogether sure what it is I’ve actually done in that time. I know I took some time away from work and pretty much everything for a while to reflect on a not particularly great year gone by and plan for a better one (as much as you can) in 2024.
Life moves forward at a regular pace, but I think sometimes we don’t. We’re either trying to push on ahead or fall behind and I don’t think either of those things are particularly healthy. Time is probably our most valuable commodity, and it was something that I felt like I had less of than I needed in 2023, so some of my decisions for 2024 were to guard it more jealousy. Of course I’ve already found myself challenging that decision when a work offer came in. I have however stuck to my decision and turned it down. It was hard, but on balance it feels like the right thing to have done and honestly it’s unlikely that I’ll ever find out anything differently, so…
Reading
I’ve read a couple of good books so far this year. Holly by Stephen King and Local by Alastair Humphreys. I recommend both.
The Stephen King is more on his crime writing than horror, although some of the crimes in the book are pretty horrific and has the returning character Holly Gibney.
Local is the culmination of Alastair Humphreys year long exploration of his local Ordnance Survey map, visiting on square on the map randomly each week and writing up what he finds. Originally a series of blog posts during the pandemic/post pandemic it’s packed full of his adventures and lots of facts and information about what he discovers. Also recommended.
TV / Film
It seems we really don’t watch much TV anymore but I did sit and watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny yesterday. I loved the opening but didn’t love the film as a whole. Raiders and Last Crusade are my two favourites of the series, the others I’m pretty much not interested in. I’ll watch DoD again but I’m not expecting my opinion will change much.
The Garden
Bit too cold for much to be happening out there are the moment. I have however cleaned out the greenhouse in preparation for the growing season and I’m still shocked everytime I walk past and realise how much cleaner it is now. It’s positively shiny! I’ve also sown some tomatoes, chilli and sunflower seeds in a tray in my office – I like to sow something each year on New Year’s Day, to mark the turning of the year, plus chillies have a long growing season and the early you can get them started the better. The sunflowers have already germinated but no sign of the chillies yet.
Work
I think I’ve pretty much covered that above, otherwise I’m just doing some new year admin stuff.
Outside
It’s been a bit of mixed bag weather wise, and I long for the lighter mornings, but being out early and hearing the calls of tawny and little owls is a bit special, as is seeing the eyes of deer light up in the beam of the headtorch.
Well that’s it from me. I hope to write a bit more here this year and I hope that you’ll stick around for the journey. If not however I understand and no hard feelings if you choose to unsubscribe. I’m not sure how frequently these will be coming however and I’m not planning to stick to any schedule, I’d rather write something when I have something to say rather than write something for the sake of a calendar date.
Talk soon…