New Year's Eve

I’ve still got a bad chest, the flower stalk on the orchid died so it will be months before I know what it looks like, but I have started running again. Taking it really slow, but I just couldn’t wait. It’s hard when I’m doing it, but it feels so good when I’ve dragged myself round, that it’s addictive. London Fields is half empty of course. Just a few folks passing through, walking dogs or running like me. And deceptive ground: it looks fine, but I’m coming home with my shoes caked in sticky mud. They’ve re-opened the long-derelict toilets. Good, though it’s a shame they felt the need to paint them brick red all over. Looks OK, but in my opinion the graffiti on them looked better.

Part of the reason I’ve started running again, perhaps a little soon, is it’s New Year. Every year I feel like New Year somehow should set the scene for the year to come. The whole starting as you mean to go on thing. I feel like I should sleep well, wake early, exercise and eat well. If I start positive, happy, organised etc then somehow that will increase my chances of the rest of the year being that way, like some kind of spell. Unfortunately my New Year’s plans are usually incompatible with reality and everyone else’s plans. It seems for most people New Year’s Eve is a time put off everything till tomorrow, get drunk and be loud enough to let everyone know you are ‘having a good time’, even if you won’t remember it yourself the next morning. Many times I’ve started the New Year cursing some neighbour who wants to stay up partying all night, and knowing quite well that New Year’s Eve is the one night of the year when I definitely cannot complain without looking like the biggest party pooper going.

Of course I’ve had my New Year’s Eves out partying too, so I could be accused of being hypocritical. I do see the merits of letting rip every now and again, and I guess it’s a good thing to have it on one agreed night of the year rather than the noisy types taking turns to keep everyone else up. Just I guess there’s no such thing as the perfect night to do it, and I wish for such a thing as perfect soundproofing as well.

I’d be tempted to go join in, but this year I’d like to bring in the New Year with a running event. There’s two main choices. Firstly the Serpentine New Years Day 10k in Hyde Park. It has a reasonably civilized start at 11 am. Unfortunately it also has entry in advance and I missed it. So it looks like a trip to the Bushey Park Time Trial starting at 9 am. Unfortunately that means leaving the house about 6 am to trek right across London. If I manage to drag myself out for it the chances I’ll be doing it on a full night’s sleep are somewhat slim!