Season's Greetings

I’m off for my Christmas break now.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,

and may your New Year be filled with all those wonderful riches money can’t buy.

Winter rainbow

We’ve had a frost here – at last! So it’s time to get out the winter coats, boots, gloves, scarves and …

 hmmm ...

  this is last year’s woolly hat

 

It’s very warm and practical but not exactly the height of fashion.

Brainwave!

A new hat and a guarantee that I’ll be under a rainbow wherever I go!   

Incommunicado

My mobile phone has stopped working. I think it died of old age. Should I send it for recycling, donate it to a museum or keep it until it becomes a highly desirable collector’s item?

And what about a replacement? I suppose I should consider getting one of those all-singing, all-dancing smart phones that practically live your life for you. But as I only want a mobile to use in case of emergencies when I’m away from home (not for checking emails, listening to music, playing games or taking photos) it seems a waste of all that technology.

When I am Rich I could buy what is advertised as the world’s most expensive phone. It’s certainly pretty – encased in rose gold and diamonds – but I wonder if the five million pound price tag includes a guarantee that it can always pick up a good signal?

I’ve got a better idea …

I’ll just make do with my landline but I’ll employ someone to answer all those annoying junk calls about changing my energy supplier, ‘free’ home improvements and claiming compensation for an accident I never had!

 

Sitting comfortably

When I am Rich I’ll want to put some seats in my garden, and a table for alfresco dining would be useful, but I don’t think I’ll be buying any furniture from the posh garden centre I visited the other day. A table and six chairs for almost £5,000? Another set reduced to a mere £3,500?  It wasn’t just the price tags that made me shake my head – I didn’t like the designs or the fact that they were mostly made of metal, glass and various types of plastic. Not quite the thing to fit in with my wildlife-friendly eco garden. 

When the time is right I’ll search out some good, solid, handmade wooden furniture like this. It’ll look good, last for ages and I’ll have plenty of money left over for more plants!

In the meantime, I’m very comfortable in this. (It’s also the only piece of garden furniture I can squeeze into my tiny garden!)

I was making the most of the unusually warm October weather here at the beginning of the week. Still sunny today but a cold wind blowing.

A-tishoo!

When I am Rich I will still live in the countryside, but not in the part of our green and pleasant land where I am now. I love having trees, grass and wild plants of all kinds as my neighbours. I have no problem with fields of wheat, barley, potatoes, beans, cabbages, turnips or other vegetables. Orchards would be a delight! But I don’t want to be in a place where I can see this from my window:

                                             

                                                A-tishoo!

                                   Oh, what is that honeyed fragrance  

that wafts on the summer breeze?   

‘Tis surely the scent of ambrosia      

that gods sup while taking their ease.

Is it the breath of sweet roses,

or lilies both costly and rare?

Does it drift from the north or the south,

this perfume that fills all the air?

I must find the source of this wonder,

so I follow my nose down the lane.

And there, like a giant’s spilled treasure,

is a shimmering, bright yellow plain.

I gaze at the dazzle of flowers

till my eyes and my nose start to stream.

Oh, no! Dreaded oilseed rape!
                                   Where’s my anti-histamine?

Spring has sprung!

 … and I’m enjoying my miniature irises

 and miniature daffodils.

 

 Of course, when I am Rich and have my big garden there will be plenty of room for full-size flowers and even giant varieties. But I’ll still plant these little ones, they do have a certain charm all of their own.

Once in a pink moon

Space travel is one of the things I’d love to do when I am Rich. If I had $200,000 to spare I’d book a space flight with Virgin Galactic today! I can’t get to the moon yet, but last Saturday it was almost as though the moon had come to visit me. It was closer to Earth than it had been for the past 18 years, and I had a wonderfully clear view of it.

What surprised me most wasn’t the moon’s apparent size but its amazing colour. As it rose, it caught the last rays of the setting sun, which turned it a beautiful orangey pink. My camera couldn’t capture the exact colour my eyes were seeing but it was a sight I’ll remember for a long time – and it was all for free! 

The New Year starts here!

The thing I like best about New Year is starting a new diary.

When I am Rich I suppose I could have expensive diaries: beautifully bound books with my name embossed on the covers, gilt-edged pages of the finest handmade paper … 

But what’s the point? I don’t use a diary to record my daily thoughts and actions. It’s not something I want to pass on to my heirs or use as reference material if I ever write my autobiography. All I need is a plain and simple diary to help me plan what I’m going to do for the next 12 months.

I start by entering all the important dates – birthdays, anniversaries etc. – and any appointments and writing deadlines that need to be carried over from the old diary.

Next, I check the list of goals I set myself for the past year. I cross off those I achieved (hooray!) and decide whether to abandon or persevere with those I didn’t manage.

Finally, I write a new goal list in the notes section of my new diary, work out what I need to do to achieve each one, and fill in some reminders and deadlines to keep me on track. This gives me a framework to which I can add new tasks as they arise throughout the year.

It’s a good plan – except that it didn’t work out this year.

I bought my 2011 diary at the beginning of December and wrote prepare new diary on the December 30th page in my 2010 diary. This was the day after I was due to return from my Christmas break and would ensure the new diary was ready and waiting to get me off to a good start on January 1^st.

What I hadn’t anticipated was coming home to find water dripping through the bedroom ceiling! Or some urgent paid work that had to be given priority. Or the muddled weeks, filled with interruptions and minor but time-consuming problems, that followed.

I didn’t get around to starting my new diary until January 30^th.

But, at last, I have it: my blueprint to guide me through 2011. Except that it’s February already and the work I was optimistically hoping to get done in 12 months now has to be crammed into 11 months!

Do you keep a diary? What sort? Does it help or hinder you?