Instead, there has been a notable lack of progress in most areas of my life. I’m still fatter, poorer and more tired than I would like. I have not improved my personal administration in any way, shape or form, choosing instead to lose my wallet, necessitating a number of form-filling episodes. This has culminated in my having to inform the DVLA that not only are my name, address and photo on my driver’s license woefully out of date, but that I have sadly lost said license. They now want me to parcel up every piece of paper that identifies me and send it to them, forthwith. I’m not thrilled at the prospect of sending my birth and marriage certificates, passport and recent photograph off to a government-run agency. Call me pessimistic, and you can, but I have a bad feeling about the health and well-being of that envelope.

I know. QUIT. Not “got injured and was forced to withdraw”, but QUIT. Because I couldn’t be arsed. And I feel great about it. I’m not forcing myself into doing something because I think I should. I don’t even feel bad that I don’t want to. I’d like to fall in love with running again, and forcing myself to run 26.2, in pursuit of a personal best time that I don’t deep down care about, isn’t going to help with that.

Instead Le Homme and I are taking to the streets on our bikes tomorrow. We’re going to cycle the 46 odd miles from here to Edinburgh, stay at my sister’s, go to dinner with his brother, watch a bit of the marathon kick off on Sunday, and cycle home. Cos that’s how we roll.

Blogs posts and thoughts for the future to include:

• Why I’m not running the Edinburgh Marathon
• How I got a bit fat and what I plan to do about it
• What I’m doing at work and my new career change plans
• Why I want a car
• Possibly some resolutions. Too late to be referred to as New Years’
• Why I have an intense hatred of Sheryl Crow
• Other stuff. Probably.

Now I’m off to roll my poor tired wee legs on my funky foam roller, and have a peaceful evening with my book.

Now, three cups of coffee later, my head feels cotton wool stuffed and my eyes are sore and tired. I have loads of stuff I wanted to get done today, but none of it has the urgency that sitting on the couch gazing blankly at the telly seems to hold.

So nothing deep and meaningful from me today. I wrote an amazingly fun poem as I was waiting for the Tesco man, but put nothing on paper and have predictably forgotten all the best lines. Perhaps they’ll come to me at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

• Went to work for a few hours even though it was my scheduled day off, (surprise! Chocolate shop in gets-busy-at-Easter shocker!) to make some truffles and bake a banana loaf.
• Waited as the bus went on an extremely long route going past my house twice, in order to get to Morrison’s to pick up some vital basics (deodorant, tin foil).
• Stood in shock and awe at the shiny shiny new chiller cabinets in Morrisons, and the thrilling contents therein. Peppers stuffed with cream cheese! A variety of flavoured couscous! Satay chicken on a stick!*
• Bought a variety of chilled goods.
• Remembered small tins of tonic for gin.
• Forgot the deodorant and tin foil.
• Came home, sat in the garden for three hours reading Joanne Harris’ new novel blueeyedboy.**
• Dozed off listening to BBC 6Music, and the increasingly aggressive pigeon.
• Returned to the house to cook tomorrow’s dinner (lamb rogan josh), and tonight’s (pork steaks, new potatoes and homemade coleslaw).
• Sipped a G&T whilst listening to the News Quiz on Radio 4 and writing this here blog.

A satisfactory day, in its own unexciting way. Hope you’re all enjoying a Great Good Friday.

*I did not buy chicken on a stick. That is not a happy chicken.

**compulsive but underwhelming.

I can’t quite believe it’s April already, I feel a little discombobulated, as though the world just kept turning for a while there and I wasn’t paying any attention. I think that’s a feature of the long dark winter, a little bit of my brain dips into hibernation mode and I feel a little like I’m waking up, and going “Huh? Wha..?”. I’m thrilled to bits about Spring in all it’s springyness though, even if it is currently drizzling outside.

I spend my days composing endlessly witty posts about the World At Large and my own small part in it. Terribly amusing though they are, these posts never see the light of laptop screen as by the time I get home all the pretty words have fallen from my brain. I’m not sure if I want to blog as much as I want to be a blogger and be part of a whole internet “gang”. But then, I think of the honest-to-goodness joy I get from reading my old paper diaries, and previous now defunct blogs.

So I shall carry on, I think. It feels odd though, a bit stage-frightery, a bit pointless. Like when you begin an anecdote at a party and then are interrupted by some uncommonly rude individual and you just sort of peter out awkwardly, never reaching the punchline.

A challenge then. To write some words here, every day, for the rest of February. What words, I don’t yet know. Suffice to say there is unlikely to be any kind of theme, plan, or general purpose. Which might not be a bad thing.

Until I awoke feeling really, terribly ill a little bit poorly, and spent the  day on the sofa watching the first season of Heroes (remember when Heroes was good? It was, once, long ago), interspersed with some light dusting and thinking about how I should really get on with making some resolutions/goals/intentions for the year ahead. I have none of these. I have a general, vague intention to not be quite so rubbish. Specifically relating to; personal admin (bank statements, application forms for anything, library books, medical appointments, scary letters, non scary letters, etc, etc) personal fitness (seem to have signed up for another bloody Marathon, also woefully unfit for skiing holiday which commences in 3 days time)   and mental health (using food as coping mechanism, being miserable/cross/anxious 80% of the time, distracting self with tv/radio/books to the point that any kind of silence is untenable). There are probably other deeply unsatisfactory elements of my character which could do with being better, before we lap the sun again and I’m forced to confront 2012 in all my glory.

Hmph.

Actually, I do think that having some plans and ideas put in place could help immensely with my main goal, which is really to try to enjoy this year. I can only really relax when tasks are complete and my “to do” list is empty. Creating some goals I want to achieve rather than those I think I should, means that the wee voice inside that says “Yes, but shouldn’t you….” can be answered with either an “Actually, maybe I will” or a “No, no I shouldn’t. Cos I don’t WANT to”.

Theoretically.  Perhaps. We’ll see.

We are having quite a lovely first day of the New Year, curled up in front of the fire with our books, a Jamie Oliver inspired steak sandwich dinner is forthcoming as are wine and cheese.

Christmas was hectic, frazzled, and whilst not entirely unpleasant, kind of tiring. I was home for around twelve hours before I was back at work on Monday, which has been busy, but actually quite good fun. I had a smug moment as I was dancing around the kitchen, making chocolate muffins and thinking “Hee! I’m getting paid for this!”. By Friday evening though, the last thing I felt like doing was heading off to a Hogmanay bash. I’m glad we did though, as our charming friends threw a splendid gathering, which was incredibly chilled out and low key.

It was an honest joy to wake in our own bed this morning, safe in the knowledge that there was no need to bloody drive anywhere, and I was entirely revived by the holy trinity of coffee, bacon and irn bru. If the rest of the year goes as well as today, I shall be a happy little camper indeed.

No further introspection or resolutions for me today. Instead, as my sister said earlier – Happy New Year. May 2011 be full of fun and frolics.

I’d like to say that my recent silence has been because I’ve been incredibly busy, working, having fun etc etc. That is partly true, but the main reason is an amazingly painful right shoulder/arm, brought on by a snowy driveway cleaning epic. It has snowed and snowed and snowed since my last post. And then it got very, very, very cold. I was reading blog posts written by some lucky Southerners who were bemoaning the “barely above zero temperatures”. To which I can only respond: “ZERO! We dream of zero! Zero sounds positively balmy when it’s a nose-hair freezing -13 degrees celsius!”. Seriously, cold.

I spent three hours clearing our driveway on Saturday and have done something nasty to my shoulder, which has resulted in me spending the rest of the week sporting a rather festive sparkly scarf/sling. I don’t know what I’ve done, but anything involving arm movements (cooking, cleaning, reading, typing) either hurts or causes a low dull ache in that arm for a couple of hours. Which is aggravating, not least because I keep thinking it’s getting better and then performing some vital task (washing my hair), only to wind up in pain for the next four hours. I’m avoiding painkillers, simply because pain is the body’s way of going “STOP!” and painkillers stop you feeling that. After nearly a week, rest is not helping so I’ve got an appointment with the lovely sports physio dudes on Monday.

Most frustratingly, I find I have lots of things to blog about (books, the awesomeness that is Masterchef Australia, seeing James Naughtie and Alistair Campbell at the Lennoxlove book festival, fitness, marathons, porridge, and the joys of having a real fire to make bread) and can’t face the incredibly tedious left hand typing.

Have a lovely, warm and pain-free weekend my lovelies, and please forgive the typos.