2026 :: A Slow Start

Hi there everyone 😀

Whilst I do still have a couple of posts to share with you from our trip to York, as well as a Lodge Life post, I just fancied a bit of a change from a tourist information post today.

I think it’s fair to say that the first two or three weeks of the new year found us just drifting about aimlessly really … with no real plans or goals for the year ahead.

Now this doesn’t bother Martin at all … he is all for embracing the slowness. I’m a bit different … I start to get a bit antsy. I like to know what we’re doing, where we’re going and … most of all… how we are going to get there.

It would be very easy in retirement for us to just spend too much time sitting around in our dressing gowns, mindlessly scrolling and not doing very much at all and, don’t get me wrong … every now and then this is exactly what I need … but I always get to a point when I need to have a bit of focus.

It normally happens when the house is starting to feel in need of a deep clean, maintenance jobs are piling up and the garden is looking far from its best.

This year last week was the point where action needed to be taken. At this point there seemed to be one thing that was taking all of our focus … food … meal planning, shopping, meal preparation and batching and eating …

It was time for the annual ‘conversation’. The notebook and the coloured pens were out and it was time for a serious brain dump …

Between us we came with a very hefty list of things that either needed doing or we would like to do … ranging from fixing a frustrating chimney leak to finding a supplement to help with brittle fingernails.

We are always a bit ‘loose’ with timescales for things we want to do and, for me, I’m happy as long as I feel we are making some progress and moving in the right direction.

To plan everything in over the full year always feels a bit overwhelming so last year we started just giving ourselves a few things that we’d like to achieve on a month by month basis. This worked really well last year so it seemed to make sense to follow the same approach this year.

As soon as we’d done our brain dump I felt a lot better and a lot more motivated to get on and get things done and I’m delighted to say that we have ticked something off of our January list every day since we did it …

It’s always small steps at this time of year but so far we’ve bought a dehumidifier, had the roofers out to look at the chimney, spring cleaned and decluttered the bathroom, found a cheaper home insurance deal, done a few small garden jobs, signed up for 12 weeks of Slimming World, made some medical appointments and had a day out …

I’m calling that a good start … but don’t want to overdue it so I might just have a bit of a read before we start prepping for tea 😜

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