When we move into a New Year, my immediate reaction is, rather morbidly, I suppose, that this is another year closer to the date that will eventually be on my gravestone, and then I remind myself, well, I have no plans to pay for my funeral so given the likelihood I’m going into an unmarked grave, it’s not something I need to be worrying about.
The old year had unexpectedly peaked on the 21st of December when my normally dead quiet social calendar found itself double booked. That’ll never happen again, but by the time I got home in the early hours that night from the Croydon wilderness, normal service had already resumed, and the final days of 2023 were low key and mentally quite difficult.
The new year has started in similar fashion. I’ve done fairly well to tame the (these days ‘decaf’) coffee habit that was quietly creeping up again. This morning, the urge for a pre-swim coffee has been successfully quashed with a reasonably satisfying peppermint tea, which I was big on in the late 2010s when the coffee habit was significantly higher. I’ve also made a bit of an effort on the sleeping, which isn’t easy because I absolutely hate the business of trying to sleep. I’d had a few lie ins over Christmas which added to the present lethargy so unusually for me, just until my body clock is back to normal, I’m having to rely on the alarm clock for now to get me up bright and early.
I’m picking up a few more spots on the comedy circuit, and am back in Croydon on 7th January for a low-key 10 spot to ease myself in. I felt last year, being new to the circuit, I took too long to get going. The circuit tends to get quieter at the end of a year and January also tends to be quiet, so I’m pleased I’ve taken steps to address that.
I just need to find a way of perking up the current mood. I was on something of a crest for much of December, unexpectedly, and that was down to one or two unexpected events in my life. Mentally I was feeling better and physically I felt the benefits of that. That’s all important now given the running injury is limiting me on the running front and leaving me having to try and sneak in the odd swim when the pool isn’t full of rowdy school kids. I hope I can somehow recapture what I briefly had up until the 21st of December because right now, it is difficult to motivate myself.
I’ve just finished editing the latest interview for my historical football show When Shorts Were Short. It is, I hope, another enjoyable episode. The problem with interviewing elderly former footballers is they often lose their train of thought and slip into talking about something else, complicating the edit, and that’s been the case with this latest episode, but I’m experienced enough to work my way through that. That’s out at the end of this week, available from all platform providers, as the kids say.
And on that note, with no segue at all, Happy New Year to my readers.
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