Next Year Will Be Better
Don't get me wrong. This year has brought me many Things That Are Good, and I appreciate each and every one of them. It did, however, also bring me plenty of Stuff That Was Pants, which I am looking forward to leaving behind.
So here is a bit of a retrospective ramble for me to look back at in a year's time when 2013 is totally last year...
January. The Good Things of January included being awake to hear the New Year rung in by our local bellringers; a very loud and virtuoso song thrush taking up residence in the garden; my best mate coming for a visit; and lots of rather good meals cooked by the rest of my family. The Pants of January included lots of cold and snow, a large rat taking up residence in the kitchen, and all (and I mean all) of my hair falling out as a result of chemotherapy.
February. My mum came to stay to look after me for a week, which proved to be a surprisingly Good Thing for both of us and gave us a chance to do daft stuff like getting all nostalgic over the family photo albums. We had the house rewired, which was Pants while it was ongoing but is definitely Good now it's finished.
March. The chemo was finally over and I got to move back into my own bed, having been banished to my studio since November. A couple of weeks 'off' and then daily radiotherapy. I asked for morning appointments. They gave me 7.15 in the evening appointments. Most definitely Pants. Lots of time sitting in waiting rooms... although that did give me lots of time to scribble various half-arsed ideas in notebooks. I really ought to get on and type them all up and post them. I have no excuse any more!
April. I had hoped the radiotherapy would be finished by my birthday, but it wasn't quite. I did have a lovely birthday though, since it was on a weekend and therefore hospital-free: the sun shone, we went for a (short and rather slow) walk on the beach and came home and watched the Hobbit on DVD because I hadn't been able to go and see it in the cinema.
May. Yay, no more treatment! I was fat, bald and knackered but things were looking up. I tottered back to community choir practice, I just about managed to go and visit my best mate for her birthday (a straightforward train trip there and back, I needed a week to recover though!), a fuzz of hair was definitely appearing on my head and I was able to go out and do stuff with the family again.
June. The weather warmed up. Lots of birds were nesting in the garden and I spent lots of time just sitting watching them. At the end of June trepkos and her Spousal Overunit came for a visit - three days of very gentle birdwatching activity and I was once again totally knackered, but it felt like a huge step forward having been able to have visitors. I hope they'll come back again next year and we can add to our tally of birds - and cream teas!
July was wonderful and HOT. We bought a sunbed, a picnic table and a parasol and made full use of them - I love eating outdoors, somehow everything tastes better. Or maybe that was just the drugs wearing off... We grew our lawn long and it was full of moths (never seen so many things in the moth trap!); we had lots of walks and picnics; I sang in the choir's summer concert and people started complimenting me on my hairstyle rather than giving me that pitying 'you've had chemo but I don't like to ask about it' look. Good. All good.
August was also wonderful and hot and I started being able to walk a decent distance, albeit slowly and wheezily. We did lots of family-summer-holiday stuff like crazy golf and cream teas, and although the plan had been to go to Pompeii this year - which wouldn't have been feasible - we had a sedate week on the Scilly Isles instead and that was terrific fun.
September Good Things included a gig by John Cooper Clarke (still going; still wettingly funny) and family autumnal walks in the New Forest. Also dandruff. Never thought that would be on a list of Good Things but it was surprisingly heartening to have enough hair for it!
October started with a visit to trepkos - we did some writing (I'd been struggling to produce anything that was any good... still am, but that is one of the things that WILL be better next year!) and some research into filming locations. It was terrific research, the sort that involves plenty of cups of tea and sticky cakes!
In November I was finally given the official all-clear; there were fireworks (not on my behalf but enjoyable all the same!) and yet more family walks. I was gutted when wrisomifu came to an end - an actual, permanent end - but yay, there is now a year-round ushobwri community instead so I can continue to whinge and moan about writing, instead of getting on and actually, um, writing...
And here we are at the very end of December, a stormy month and a socially busy one. Christmas was perfect (unlike last Christmas, where having a good time was a struggle, given that I'd had a chemo treatment on Christmas Eve), I sang my voice to bits at our choir's carol concert, we had visits to or from lots of relatives, holly and mistletoe were hung, sherry and Bailey's were quaffed, presents (including the traditional socks) were left by Santa... and I got almost no writing done at all.
I did just about manage to keep up with my self-imposed challenge of making something every day - although the past few weeks' photos are still all in confusion and I have a nasty feeling I may be a few 'makes' short of the complete 365. Next year I'll be attempting to write regularly instead. Maybe not every day, but certainly every week.
And what else do I want out of 2014? Well, a year without medical dramas would be nice. I plan to rediscover my creative mojo and get my languishing online shop back on track. There will be weight loss - slow but steady - and more of a routine. There will be fewer teetering stacks of neglected paperwork and possibly a conversion of the garden from jungle to actual garden with flowers and a lawn and everything. Somehow I will get my estranged brother to communicate with me again, because I've missed him. And trepkos, I will be coming to visit again and there will be cake!
Finally - thank you to all my livejournal friends, to everyone who has bothered to read my scribblings and still more to everyone who has bothered to comment! I wish you all a New Year with many Good Things and no pants!
So here is a bit of a retrospective ramble for me to look back at in a year's time when 2013 is totally last year...
January. The Good Things of January included being awake to hear the New Year rung in by our local bellringers; a very loud and virtuoso song thrush taking up residence in the garden; my best mate coming for a visit; and lots of rather good meals cooked by the rest of my family. The Pants of January included lots of cold and snow, a large rat taking up residence in the kitchen, and all (and I mean all) of my hair falling out as a result of chemotherapy.
February. My mum came to stay to look after me for a week, which proved to be a surprisingly Good Thing for both of us and gave us a chance to do daft stuff like getting all nostalgic over the family photo albums. We had the house rewired, which was Pants while it was ongoing but is definitely Good now it's finished.
March. The chemo was finally over and I got to move back into my own bed, having been banished to my studio since November. A couple of weeks 'off' and then daily radiotherapy. I asked for morning appointments. They gave me 7.15 in the evening appointments. Most definitely Pants. Lots of time sitting in waiting rooms... although that did give me lots of time to scribble various half-arsed ideas in notebooks. I really ought to get on and type them all up and post them. I have no excuse any more!
April. I had hoped the radiotherapy would be finished by my birthday, but it wasn't quite. I did have a lovely birthday though, since it was on a weekend and therefore hospital-free: the sun shone, we went for a (short and rather slow) walk on the beach and came home and watched the Hobbit on DVD because I hadn't been able to go and see it in the cinema.
May. Yay, no more treatment! I was fat, bald and knackered but things were looking up. I tottered back to community choir practice, I just about managed to go and visit my best mate for her birthday (a straightforward train trip there and back, I needed a week to recover though!), a fuzz of hair was definitely appearing on my head and I was able to go out and do stuff with the family again.
June. The weather warmed up. Lots of birds were nesting in the garden and I spent lots of time just sitting watching them. At the end of June trepkos and her Spousal Overunit came for a visit - three days of very gentle birdwatching activity and I was once again totally knackered, but it felt like a huge step forward having been able to have visitors. I hope they'll come back again next year and we can add to our tally of birds - and cream teas!
July was wonderful and HOT. We bought a sunbed, a picnic table and a parasol and made full use of them - I love eating outdoors, somehow everything tastes better. Or maybe that was just the drugs wearing off... We grew our lawn long and it was full of moths (never seen so many things in the moth trap!); we had lots of walks and picnics; I sang in the choir's summer concert and people started complimenting me on my hairstyle rather than giving me that pitying 'you've had chemo but I don't like to ask about it' look. Good. All good.
August was also wonderful and hot and I started being able to walk a decent distance, albeit slowly and wheezily. We did lots of family-summer-holiday stuff like crazy golf and cream teas, and although the plan had been to go to Pompeii this year - which wouldn't have been feasible - we had a sedate week on the Scilly Isles instead and that was terrific fun.
September Good Things included a gig by John Cooper Clarke (still going; still wettingly funny) and family autumnal walks in the New Forest. Also dandruff. Never thought that would be on a list of Good Things but it was surprisingly heartening to have enough hair for it!
October started with a visit to trepkos - we did some writing (I'd been struggling to produce anything that was any good... still am, but that is one of the things that WILL be better next year!) and some research into filming locations. It was terrific research, the sort that involves plenty of cups of tea and sticky cakes!
In November I was finally given the official all-clear; there were fireworks (not on my behalf but enjoyable all the same!) and yet more family walks. I was gutted when wrisomifu came to an end - an actual, permanent end - but yay, there is now a year-round ushobwri community instead so I can continue to whinge and moan about writing, instead of getting on and actually, um, writing...
And here we are at the very end of December, a stormy month and a socially busy one. Christmas was perfect (unlike last Christmas, where having a good time was a struggle, given that I'd had a chemo treatment on Christmas Eve), I sang my voice to bits at our choir's carol concert, we had visits to or from lots of relatives, holly and mistletoe were hung, sherry and Bailey's were quaffed, presents (including the traditional socks) were left by Santa... and I got almost no writing done at all.
I did just about manage to keep up with my self-imposed challenge of making something every day - although the past few weeks' photos are still all in confusion and I have a nasty feeling I may be a few 'makes' short of the complete 365. Next year I'll be attempting to write regularly instead. Maybe not every day, but certainly every week.
And what else do I want out of 2014? Well, a year without medical dramas would be nice. I plan to rediscover my creative mojo and get my languishing online shop back on track. There will be weight loss - slow but steady - and more of a routine. There will be fewer teetering stacks of neglected paperwork and possibly a conversion of the garden from jungle to actual garden with flowers and a lawn and everything. Somehow I will get my estranged brother to communicate with me again, because I've missed him. And trepkos, I will be coming to visit again and there will be cake!
Finally - thank you to all my livejournal friends, to everyone who has bothered to read my scribblings and still more to everyone who has bothered to comment! I wish you all a New Year with many Good Things and no pants!