I love this sign!

I liked Sarah’s post from earlier this week, where she wrote a great long list of things that make her happy.

Because I love both lists and talking about things that make me happy, here’s a selection of what’s currently making me smile, along with some photographs from my weekend spent walking miles across London, eating street food and buying vests with pictures of bikes on the front:

• Long, lazy brunches involving eggs, newspapers and coffee.  Like the one (above) which I enjoyed earlier today at this trendy East London eatery.  Those eggs?  They were perfect.
• This song.
• Finding a context in which it’s appropriate to use a new word I’ve learned.  My current mission is to fit ‘obstreperous’ or its close cousin ‘rumbustious’ into a sentence.  That would make me really happy.
• Pounding the streets of a new city and wondering what it might be like to live there.
• Audiobooks.  Mainly because reading while walking to work or sitting on the bus makes me feel incredibly efficient and like I’m winning at life (I’m currently listening to this).
• Coffee shops that are also bookshops.  The two go so well together.
• Really brilliant nights out that you weren’t expecting to be really brilliant.  The kind that take on a life of their own and make you feel like anything is possible.
• Challenges.
• Chocolate.
• That worn, weary but delighted feeling I get after a day spent climbing hills.  You know, the one where your cheeks are flushed and healthy and a fish finger sandwich accompanied by a cup of tea and a hot shower is all you want in the world?
• Making plans.  To do almost anything.
• The fact that I have no idea what I’ll be doing, or where I’ll be living by the time this year is up.  I should probably be more worried than excited about this, but I’m totally more excited.
• Flowers.  Always.

So we’ve just about made it through January.  Hurrah!  As ever, it took me a little while to get going following two weeks of Christmas and New Year madness involving far too many late nights, way too much alcohol and an average daily mince pie intake that I’m honestly too embarrassed to ascribe a figure to.  Needless to say, by the time I went back to work on January 3rd, my spirits, body and bank balance were all in terrible shape.

But!  I was prepared.  I’ve learnt a thing or two about dealing with those wiley January blues over the years.  My strategy is twofold: I try to be a friend to myself and I try to seek out some good, wholesome fun that doesn’t cost the earth and that won’t result in a three-day hangover.

So in January I forced myself into bed early and I slept in at the weekends if I felt like it.  In a bid to enhance the appeal of getting into bed before 10pm, I also bought new pillows and a new duvet cover (as boring as it sounds, that one simple act has changed my relationship with my bed for the infinite better – evidently, I can be bribed easily).  In order to deal with what I’ve come to term the “mince pie effect” I ate the odd apple, got out running in the cold and finally took the plunge and tried early morning spinning (verdict: painful, but euphoric – I think I’m a convert already).  And, to make myself feel all cosy inside, I planted my living Christmas tree in the woods near my flat.  Let’s face it: few things are more sad in January than seeing all those poor Christmas trees languishing, dead and unloved at the side of the road.

As for cheap and wholesome fun, I read a bit more in January.  I listened to an audiobook about running and I re-discovered the simple joy of flicking through the Sunday paper with a coffee in hand – a routine I used to love but that I’ve somehow let slip along the way.  January is always a good time for a little bit of escapism – a good book, an amazing film or a weekly half hour of silliness courtesy of this wonderful woman (a new hero of mine).  I also went to a few ceilidhs, a comedy night and I took an all-day navigation course (is there anything more wholesome than learning when you don’t actually need to)?  Finally, and just for good measure, I ate lots of cake and drank (not too much) beer with my friends.  If all else fails in January, there’s always cake.

So all in all, it hasn’t been so bad, and my Winter blues are, thankfully, behind me.  I’m spending the final few days of the month in London, mainly for work but I do have lots of theatre-going, market-trawling and cheese-eating lined up for my spare time (any London readers with ideas for off-the-beaten-track-fun in their city please drop me a line!).

And then it’ll be February.

We made it!

In 2012 I took up running and completed my first 10K.  In 2012 I learned yoga, I took up ceilidh dancing and I started going to boxing classes.

In 2012 I went to Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges and London.  In 2012 I spent a weekend in Aviemore with my oldest friends.  In 2012 I camped on Arthur’s Seat and cycled on Arran.  In 2012 I realised that Scotland is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  In 2012 I saw one of my best friends get married.

In 2012 I learned how to do a headstand and I climbed 8 Munros.  In 2012 I learned how to take a bearing on a compass and I discovered a weirdly hidden talent for Laserquest.  In 2012 I realised I love being outside more than I ever thought I did.  In 2012 I discovered that blue cheese in scrambled egg is a taste sensation.  In 2012 I honed my rocky road recipe.   

In 2012 I survived a serious break up.  In 2012 I learned approximately a million things about relationships, and approximately two million things about myself.  In 2012 I became single for the first time in ten years, and I found that I absolutely love it.  In 2012 I finally understood, in a real sense, that there are lots of things in life that can’t be controlled.  In 2012 I realised that sometimes, the only way out of pain is right through the heart of it. 

In 2012 I discovered Fleetwood Mac and I saw one of my favourite bands in concert.  In 2012 I cried every time I saw the trailer for Life of Pi at the cinema.  In 2012 I fell in love with William Boyd and Haruki Marukami.  In 2012 I found out that I’m going to be an Auntie for the first time. 

In 2012 I discovered that most people actually really want to be there for you and that sometimes all you need to do is ask.  In 2012 I grew close to people at work I’d never anticipated growing close to.  In 2012 I hung out with my sister more and felt like I was a better person for it.  In 2012 I decided I need to work on my upper body strength.

In 2012 friends of mine moved back to Edinburgh from far-gone places and I remembered how much I loved being with them.  In 2012 I realised the true worth of having friends you’ve known since you were small.  In 2012 I joined a hill walking group and quite unexpectedly made a whole pile of new friends. 

In 2012 I threw away my TV and spent more time reading.  In 2012 I got over my fear of the phone.  In 2012 I discovered that I can drive in the city and on the motorway if I just get on and do it. 

In 2012 I finally appreciated that the easiest way to grow is to do things that scare you and when those things no longer scare you, to find more stuff that scares you and keep on going.

2012 has been a big year for me.  There was a lot of change at work, a significant change in my relationship status, a whole load of new people and a whole bunch of new things that I realised I absolutely love doing.  Parts of this year were difficult, a small part of it was sad and lots and lots of it was really quite scary.  But looking around me as 2012 comes to a close, I can honestly say that I’ve never felt happier to be who I am, happier to be where I am, or happier to be sharing what I’ve got with the people I have around me.  I’m seeing the year out holed up in a bunkhouse with 26 others on the banks of Loch Lomond, building fires, camping and jumping in freezing lakes.  As I’ll likely die of hypothermia in the process of having too much fun, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this blog a very happy New Year, and every best wish for an adventurous 2013.  How exciting it is to have absolutely no idea what it may bring. 

Image above from here.

Hello indeed!  I hope everyone had a warm, cosy, happy Christmas full of all the things that make this time of year come alive for you.  For my part, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the annual sing-a-thon I have in the car with my friends on our way up North; a cosy (and oftentimes rather tipsy) Christmas Eve catch up in the local pub and, obviously, eating so much food that I’m fit for nothing more than watching crappy TV and Harry Potter DVDs for days on end.  Ah, it’s a special time of year, right enough.

You may well have noticed that this is the first blog post I’ve written in a month.  In my defence, I don’t have a computer at the moment.  Having said that, even if I did, I can’t honestly say I’d have been here.  I just don’t have the blogging bug anymore. 

Occasionally I feel the need to write, or to share some of my many thoughts, but the days when I felt motivated to get up and blog before going to work, or when I’d rush home to pen my thoughts for the day before doing anything else are well and truly behind me now – to be perfectly honest, they have been for months, if not the whole of this year.

It’s left me wondering occasionally what I should do.  No one likes to see a blog they once loved wither and die, the posts becoming more and more infrequent, the quality of the writing ever-poorer.  It’s sad – even more so when that blog is your own.  But even still, I can’t quite bring myself to say goodbye.  The blogging community is a wonderful place – it was for a time, my favourite place to come.  I cannot put into words the inspiration I’ve found here, the companionship, the warmth, the friendship even, all from people who I’ve never once met in the flesh.  Whenever I’ve written about something tough that’s happening in my life, the readers of this blog have knocked me sideways with their compassion, their kind words and their sincerity.  And the laughs I’ve had here, the (happy) tears, the wonder at realising that there are so many amazing people out there in the world, determined to do their little creative bit and to share that with the rest of us.  All of these are things I continue to find truly, wonderfully humbling. 

So I can’t quite bring myself to make this the last post.  And in fact, I don’t really want to.  While I’m definitely no longer a regular blogger, every now and then I am still struck by that desire to put some of my many thoughts or musings out there for consumption and to empathise, laugh at or ponder what, if anything, comes back.  And maybe that’s OK.  Maybe my posts don’t have to be connected by some kind of theme, maybe there needn’t be all that many of them, and maybe there needn’t be hundreds upon hundreds of photographs or videos or crappily constructed lists, posted simply because I couldn’t think of anything substantive to write.  Maybe when I don’t have anything to write, I’ll write nothing.  Maybe when I find myself without a voice, I’ll let someone else do the talking.  Maybe all this blog needs to be is a little pocket of space on the internet that will indulge and encourage those sporadic inclinations I have to write my thoughts somewhere that people other than me can read them. 

I guess that’s the brilliant thing about the internet, isn’t it?  There’s a place for everything.  And everything has a place.

Image above from here.

So it took a year (with a sizeable Summer-sized break in the middle), lots of wool, a good measure of swearing and – yeah – some humming of Chariots of Fire as I was finishing the last row, but I got there!  My “big blanket” is now happily sitting on my bed, keeping my toes warm on these cold Winter nights, just as it should be.  I rarely say this about any craft project I undertake but man, I’m proud of this.

Other than the conclusion of my epic crochet project, my November has featured a weekend trip to Brussels and Bruges, lots of big happenings at work, a whole heap of hills climbed and enjoyed, some long overdue catch-up sessions with family and friends, approximately five hundred cups of chai tea, two boxing classes and one supremely amazing book that had me in tears on many occasions.  It’s been a bit of a journey.