Happy New Year

Hmm. In view of my last couple of posts, perhaps that should have just been Hello, New Year. Not that I don’t wish other people a happy new year, just not sure happy will apply to me.

So, here’s the thing. As you may or may not have noticed, things went quiet at the end of November. The 27th to be precise. (I just checked.) I was 27 days into a 42-day challenge to myself. I had promised I would write something, no matter how short every day. I’ve taken on this challenge three times previously. And I’ve managed to write every day for six weeks, each of those times. This time I failed. And I felt like a failure. Perhaps this was reflected in the only two posts I wrote in December (she says, with tongue in cheek, because it was, of course, bloody obvious.)

Well, it’s a new day and a new year, so I’m going to give it another go. Every day from now until February 11 and perhaps beyond.

Sometimes you’re so caught up in it you fail to realise you’ve fallen prey to the Mañana syndrome. Obviously I have in recent weeks.

The closest I’ve been to getting up “in the morning” has been 11am in recent weeks. Usually it’s noon, sometimes 1pm or even 2pm. I got bed too late, if I go to bed at all. This nonsense is bad enough in the summer, when the days are longer,  but this time of the year it is ridiculous. When I drag myself out of bed there are only a couple of hours of daylight left, which makes me think it’s not worth trying to get anything done that day. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I eat my dinner (or the snack that passes for dinner) on the sofa in front of the telly. I take no exercise. None of this is good. The fact that spider solitaire has returned to my life in recent weeks makes it even worse.

I warn you in advance that the next few weeks could be very boring, because mostly it will be a progress report. Ticking the boxes. What time did I go to sleep? What time did I get up? Did I accomplish anything during the day? Did I eat dinner at the table? Et cetera.

Let’s start with yesterday. I got up at two o’clock in the afternoon. (Well, I hadn’t slept the night before, so I needed it.) Yes, I accomplished something. I wrote a long post. No, I did not eat dinner at the table like a civilised person. I went to bed before midnight and saw the new year in with Bosch. (Lest you think there is some sort of love interest in my life, Bosch is the main character in Michael Connelly’s novels.) I did not turn the light off until after 3am. For this I blame Connelly. Like Ian Rankin, he’s a real just-one-more-chapter writer. I got up just before noon.

Have I bored you to death yet?