Mar 29, 2013 |
Easter. Even without the religious associations, it feels like an occasion to withdraw from the world for a little while, contemplate for a few days, and then hopefully return renewed, ready to start some new things.
The whole chocolate, rabbits, eggs and ribbons thing doesn’t have much resonance for me, but that death and rebirth metaphor is an interesting one. Powerful. Useful. Timely…
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m heading up to the Lake District for a few days which, you must admit, is way better than dying. I’m going to read, walk, write and think. And when I come back, I’ll be – if not different, then at least doing some new stuff. And that’s always helpful, psychologically speaking.
Monday coincides with the start of April which, as you know, is a 30-day month. And all of this ‘starting fresh after withdrawing’ stuff feels like the perfect occasion to reintroduce the 30 Day Calendar into my life.
If the 30 Day Calendar is new to you, it’s something I came up with while I was actually doing a 30-day project. I do these from time to time: commit to doing something every day for 30 days as a way of forming habits, learning skills, improving some aspect of my life, or just as a kind of game.
The Saddest Cats, for instance, came out of one of those projects.
For one 30-day project, I decided to have a new idea every day and blog about it – and the calendar was idea number 5. So far, it’s been a pretty useful one and people seem to like it. I even got interviewed on the radio about it. The simple ideas are usually the best.
Essentially, it’s just a piece of paper with 30 boxes on it, and you put an X in the box each day when you’ve done something you committed to doing on that regular basis. That’s pretty much the whole thing – but of course, you can make it more complicated if you wish.
It could be writing, exercising, not drinking alcohol, making a mix tape for a different friend each day, starting the morning with one of Glenn Gould’s 30 Bach Goldberg Variations (I’ve done all of these) – or some other daily regular task of your choosing.
So – I’m going to print out a bunch of them, take them away with me, and figure out what it is I’m going to commit myself to doing every day for the entirety of April. The aim of the game is to get to the end of the month with no gaps.
If you want to play along, here’s a link to the PDF. Grab it, print some out, and on Monday, let’s start doing a bunch of small things every day that make life a little better, more interesting, or more weird.
Take it from me – it’s amazing what can happen when you do a little bit of something every day for a month. And I kinda like amazing, so I’m going to pick a few different things for April.
Have a great Easter break.
Aug 23, 2011 |
I spent last week in a 12th century chateau in the south of France.
I travel a lot, as you may have noticed if you follow this blog – but I hardly ever get an actual holiday (to which my sisters always say “from what?!”). In fact, I was so ready for this break that my brain actually started to shut down a few days before we left, and it came to a complete stand-still for the first day we were in Avejan.
To say that I was ready for a break was an understatement. It was more like when your computer just runs out of processing power. I was experiencing the human equivalent of the spinning beach ball. So just shutting down and rebooting – with the help of a book, a few of my favourite people in the world and some very good wine was just what the IT helpdesk ordered.
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Feb 27, 2010 |
I talked to the animals, for a start…
In case you missed it, I’ve spent the whole of the month of February on holiday. It’s been brilliant. I haven’t had time off work like that since… well, I can’t actually remember having had time off work like that before. Four weeks. Amazing.
My sister asked me: “a holiday from what?” – which is actually a fair question. I love my job, I work with cool people, I go interesting places and get to do cool stuff. I suppose that looks like most people’s idea of a holiday most of the time.
So unlike most people, I didn’t go somewhere for my holiday. In fact, quite the opposite. I was delighted to stay at home and just chill for a change. I hardly ever get to do that. And while there was an awful lot of lazing on the couch, sleeping in and mucking about on the computer, that doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything…
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Feb 16, 2010 |
Happy Pancake Day
Jake made us pancakes for Pancake Day today. I don’t really get pancake day, nor much care what it all means, but pancakes are yummy so we joined in the fun.
These may not be traditional pancakes – they’re thick rather than wide, but they’re delicious. Like a bowl of porridge in pancake form. Just one’s a meal – and they work like this:
Alison Holst’s Oaty Pancakes
Recipe amended by Jake Dubber
1.5 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups milk
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp sugar
1 cup flour
4 Tbsp melted butter
2 mashed bananas
Put the rolled oats in a bowl. Add the milk, mashed bananas and eggs and beat with a fork to mix. Leave that mixture to soak while you get the other ingredients. Add the salt, sugar, sifted flour and baking powder, and the melted butter, and stir until the ingredients are all dampened, but not smooth.
Heat a frypan until a drop of water runs around its surface. Butter surface lightly with a little butter on soft paper, to prevent the pancake sticking. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the hot surface, and then when bubbles appear then break on the surface, turn and cook the other side.
Serve drizzled with maple syrup, golden syrup, fruit, jam, or lemon and sugar.
Dec 27, 2009 |
An altogether quieter Boxing Day.
Instead of turning left outside the hotel, today we decided to turn right, and just follow our noses. We ended up seeing a bit more of what we assumed to be ‘typical’ Czech life, as well as some pretty amazing stuff – like this broadcasting tower covered with babies.
It turned out to have a cafe and observation decks, so of course we went up to have a look – and as a result, managed to see pretty much all of Prague in one go.
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