Out With The Old And In With The New

 

As I said in my first ever post back in May 2014, I don’t do New Years resolutions but I do compile lists of hopes, aims and ambitions for the coming year.  This always seems a much more positive way of approaching a new year.

This is one of the reasons I like January.  Yes, you did read that correctly.  I. Like. January.

January has the potential to be a guilt filled month lamenting  the amount spent, ate, drank or generally indulged in during December.  Not for me. Oh no, a new year needs to be about looking for the positive, not the negative. January is about new beginnings.  I enjoy reflecting on the year that has gone, but I prefer to think of whats to come.  I like dreaming and planning the holidays we might take, I like thinking about the challenges I’m going to set myself – because, oh yes readers, I like a challenge.  I like the blank pages of diaries and calendars waiting to be filled and I like the sense of the new.  At this stage the year is full of sparkly promise and glittery unknown.

After the excesses of the lead up to the festive period and the Christmas and New Year celebrations themselves,  I like the opportunity to stand still in January.  It suddenly feels right to stay home, to hunker down, and to take stock.

January is about clearing out and its about writing lists.  I have a few January rituals.  I clear out my food cupboards.  This may involve throwing out those dried cloves from 1998 and almost certainly involves mish mash meals and weird food combinations as I try to use up those opened bags of lentils and split peas lurking in the darker recesses of cupboards and that jar of tamarind paste languishing at the back of the fridge.  January is ‘Ready Steady Cook’ Month in our house.

And it doesn’t end there my friends, I then have the joy of making lists of all those staple foods I need to replace before I embark on my big January supermarket sweep.  I still rely on Delia’s ‘How to Cook Book 2’ for her comprehensive list of the basics any well stocked store cupboard should contain.  Although on a preliminary perusal of one of my cupboards yesterday I noticed a solitary jar of Cornichons from last year, as recommended by Delia and as not used by me.  So maybe I need a little more discernment in  this years list.  Note to self; think about what we actually eat rather than what we might eat in my aspirational, idealising imagination.

With the kitchen cupboards under control, I make a beeline for the bathroom.  I make a point of clearing out tatty old make up in colours that were never going to suit my pasty tones in even the most flattering of lights. I throw out almost empty bottles of unctuous lotions that had (surprisingly!) failed to deliver the promised world of transformative, translucent, shimmery beautifulness.  Oh Yes, that’s how rock and roll I am!

I also love reading back through my journal from the previous year, its the most reliable way of reminding myself of everything that has happened good and bad and it helps me think about my hopes for the next year.  So that’s where I’m up to right now. I’m making notes, I’m thinking and I’m planning, and soon I will have a honed down list of aims and ambitions for 2015. Watch this space………

As we brace ourselves for the first full week of 2015 I wonder what your hopes and ambitions might be?