I've been thinking...

.. yes I know that's pretty dangerous, but it happens on occasion. 

A couple of times in the last two days the subject of New Year Resolutions has come up.  Among our family and friends we seem pretty unanimous that we don't do them, as they are pointless and why is it any different deciding to do something on the 1st Jan as any other day of the year?

Everyone knows that new gym memberships peak in January and attendance is tailing off by the end of February.     I used to have a long-term New Year resolution to stop biting my nails.  When I eventually did stop, it was for some other reason completely and nothing to do with the resolution. 

This year, what with things being put into perspective somewhat, Resolutions seem even more pointless.  The only one I thought about on the drive home today was:

To walk a-top the embankment and stay out of the ditch.

In other words, not to live life head-down working, or cooking/cleaning/everyday living, but up on that embankment looking around to see what's going on outside my own hill-fort. Looking for ways to expand my horizons and make the most of the fact that I'm alive and kicking. Not doing things because 'that's what's expected of me' but doing things I want to do; getting priorities balanced between other people and myself.  

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One of the things that has come about after the crash was the question of what I really miss.   Most people think I'd miss sailing - since that has always been part of my life; I own two dinghies, and over the years have done a fair bit of big-boat racing though that is now about a week every 2 years so doesn't really count any more.     Most of the sailing people I know, put in my position, would be tearing their hair out not being on the water, and desperate to be deemed fit enough to sail again.    

But I don't miss the dinghy sailing one bit.   It makes me wonder how much I actually enjoyed it before?  I know that I've always had a self-confidence issue with it and can quite easily come up with excuses why not to go out: too much wind, not enough wind, too cold etc.  Maybe I've been kidding myself all this time?  I don't know when I'll be able to sail my dinghies again and I don't really care; I know it's winter now but even in the summer I didn't sit in the garden thinking 'what a lovely day for a sail'.  It costs me £260 a year to keep 2 boats in the club dinghy park, and now I'm thinking I could use that money to go to Scotland and go canoeing with Mr H. and Django instead.

The thing I have consistently missed the most is walking, the most simple thing of all.   Not walking as in around the house, but walking to work, or into town, or along the clifftop or out on the Forest with Django.   And as an extension of that, the walking that I had started getting lazy about - out in the hills, mountains or long distance paths with Mr H.