50:50

Staggeringly Good Brewery made achieving goal number 29 even easier than the cliché suggests, and with just a few clicks on their website I had booked a table in a brewery car park. A picnic table in a dinosaur-themed brewery, warmed by patio heaters and festooned with strings of lights - perfect!

I took advantage of the gloomy bank holiday weather and stayed in baking today. I decided to cross another item off my list, this time one of those "one of these days I am going to..." tasks. My gran was a grumpy and slightly scary lady. My mum and I lived with her on and off for most of my childhood and she always did all of the cooking. To this day I don't think I have ever met a better home cook than Gran. She never used a recipe, rarely weighed anything and cooked by sight, taste, smell and instinct. She didn't have a day of professional training but had worked in service for various households from the age of 13 until well into her fifties; cleaning mostly or "scrubbing floors" as she put it. I'm sure she picked up a few techniques in the kitchens of these grand houses and some from her own mother too, who had brought up five children as a war widow without two pennies to rub together. Almost every happy memory I have of  Gran takes place in her kit...

This next item on the list was a longer-term project which began about a year ago, in Lockdown 1 (the original and best) last March, when I turned all of my clothes hangers the wrong way around. The theory is that when you wear something you remove it from the hanger and then put it back correctly afterwards. A year later, anything still facing the wrong way is sold or given away. Of course you may well have a few outfits that you only wear to weddings, parties or special events and we haven't had many of those recently; so I was probably less ruthless than I could have been. I removed all of the unworn clothes and then turned the hangers of everything that was left, so that I can repeat the process next Easter. You can see one of my wardrobes here, after that had been done.  I removed quite a lot of clothes! Two bags went straight to the clothing collection bank, they were clean and decent but I didn't think the shops would have any use for them. However someone in need might ...

Well it has been quite a year hasn't it, these last twelve months? They feel like more than the sum of their parts - longer than 52 weeks, longer than 365 days. We have had to learn new ways of working, maintaining relationships and even shopping and exercising. There have been stresses, sadnesses, bereavements and difficulties but also times of hope, progress, community. In many ways 2020 was the best and worst year of my life and 2021 may well beat it on both counts. So if ever there was an apt time to develop a positive habit, one that could help regulate my feelings and give me more control over my thoughts, it is now. Many people say that meditation is one of the most intellectually beneficial things that you can introduce into your life. It can give you the ability control how you feel at any given moment and make you the captain of your own ship. I believe those people are probably right, and even if they are not I can't see what harm sitting quietly for ten minutes each...