Still Not Enough Rice Pudding

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I had a splendid time with N, his brother, Emma and N’s nieces. N cooked the main meal, with roast poussin and veal wellington, chestnut stuffing and roast veggies. I took care of the pudding at a workshop ages ago and N flambéed it to perfection. The food was excellent, but yes too much was bought and too much eaten. Yum, yum, yum! Burp…

There have been one or two regrettable big spends too (sigh, ‘tis the nature of Christmas…), but worth it for N to have a proper family Christmas, just the way he wanted it to be.

My best present was a pair of walking boots, which I have already tried out on a 6-mile hike across the swamplands and mud-baths of Northampton. I’ve also had some books and DVDs that I really wanted. Finally – Big Train is mine!

What have I achieved in 2012?

I’ve got through some tough times. My mom’s death has been pretty raw, and at my worst points all I’ve wanted to do was run away – from everything. But I stayed. I toughed it out. Sometimes I’ve been difficult to live with. Sometimes I’ve felt like an observer of my own life, like I was watching everything through a glass, all disconnected. Sometimes, I’ve taken things more personally than I perhaps should. But, emerging from the other side now, I know that all this is normal. A few months ago I said I could never be happy again… but every so often I catch myself looking and feeling pretty happy. The cloud is still inside, but it’s okay.

I’ve had some pretty good performances. That little five minutes in front of the SFX Weekender audience felt special. The Christmas show at Woburn Sands Library was cool. Being the talking bird in Arabian Nights was great too. I also wrote and performed my own poetical play, Waking the Witch.

I’m proud of the exhibition I put on at the museum, and our opening event was great, with Anne-Marie Sandos walking round telling witch stories in character. I don’t think I’ve yet managed to achieve making Northampton a popular spook-loving tourist destination, but it could happen!

I learned to kayak.

I’ve also had a novel published this year… although I only wrote a very small part of it. I’ll try to make the next one really worth crowing about -- personally.

I managed 9 months without shopping in supermarkets. Unfortunately, I’ve lost N’s support with this just before Christmas, so the full challenge has had to stop. We sourced some great food at the Good Food Show, but we needed extra for Christmas and were not happy with our meat suppliers. Also, as N is in training he was concerned about some of the nutritional quality of the meat he was eating. So we are now going to do a shop between once and twice a month at Waitrose, the most ethical supermarket, and will continue getting veggies from the market, cat food from the pet shop and bread from the bakers. Pros - shopping won’t be restricted to Saturdays; we can get free-range; we can get fresh fish. Cons - way too tempting to shop off-list and overspend.

But now, I look ahead to 2013. These are my goals:

Do more: writing, reading for pleasure, reading for work, growing things, making things, fitness activities, saving.

Do less: TV-watching, reading for displeasure, organising shows, spending. Something’s gotta give.

Big stuff: A couple of major things are happening mid-year. One of them is MY WEDDING.

Yes, 2013 is going to be expensive. Love the thought of getting married, but don’t see the point of crippling ourselves, or losing life-choice flexibility by being tied to big loans. But N hates things looking cheap. He fears a big ‘that’ll do’ bomb exploding in his face one day, and of course I tell him it won’t, but... I’m going to be looking for lots of advice, I think...

Another Spaced quote there for all the Daisy Steiners among us.

And in a very DS way, I had the brilliant idea of spring cleaning the office today. So now I have a nice, pleasant, clean and tidy environment in which to erm... procrastinate?

No, I shall be writing. A lot.

I did find yesterday's workshop on Social Media quite inspirational, as it happens. The conclusion of the workshop was more or less 'get interesting and niche ideas by making sure you cull the dull from your Twitter feed' but there were some tangents I picked up on that got me thinking and planning. I am feeling all entrepreneurial - it's a very weird feeling.

At least I no longer feel like I want to become a hermit. I have sorted things out so I can pay my bills now at least and now that I am feeling less maudlin, N and I have been looking at wedding things again and are thinking about what we might be able to do. We still want to get married next year on 29th Feb, but even the reduced-down budget is beyond our means as it stands. Thinking caps on. Wish us luck!

In the coming year, I'm also going to be working on two long-length projects. One is a tragi-comic novel with a big dollop of 90s nostalgia, and the other is non-fiction. I'll do more of a hard sell on those when they're finished, don't worry!

I'm also going to be changing my website in the next couple of months. At the moment it's shared between Neil and myself, but he does have his own site, so I'm going to have one just for me, I think. Watch that space!

Oh, and I promise I'm going to start cheering up. Eastercon is next weekend and the votes are coming in thick and fast. Deadline tomorrow...