Should Auld Aquaintance.... and all that

 

This is one of two of the oldest friends I have.  Her name is Hilary and we met at Primary School when we were 8 years old.   We've been through puberty, passionate crushes on shakin' Stevens, first kisses, marriage, motherhood, divorce, bereavement and other endless crap together (and apart) and although we continue to this day to fall out over the silliest of things, we still love each other as much today as we did when we scratched 'HB and DC best friends' into our wooden school desk (yes, with inkwell and lid) and I'm happy - actually thrilled and delighted - that we can still call each other friend. 

One of my resolutions this New Years' Eve is to stay more in touch with friends.   It'll probably last all of a month or so, knowing me, because socialising exhausts me - that's why I'm better at Facebooking - I don't have to stand up, smile and make cups of tea - oh and tidy up either... ah Facebook, where have you been all my life?

Some of you will know that I don't really 'Do' New Years Resolutions, so here's a few of my other ones...

1. Join a choir (already in hand - along with Hilary and my goddaughter, we are lined up to start in the local church choir this coming Friday..... congregation beware!)

2. Enjoy driving.  Not so much a resolution - more of a self-imposed directive!  Recently I've begun to enjoy the independence that leaping into a car like a cornflake advert character gives me again.... and instead of worrying about what's going to happen before I've made a journey, I now find myself halfway down the road before I've realised I'm there.  Feeling the fear and doing it anyway, I think it's called.

3. Write a(nother) book. I've joined Sally Quilford's MiniNaNo.  The challenge being to write 100k words in 100 days and although I don't normally like the restrictions and stresses 'challenges' like this impose on me, I'm going to do it anyway... or at least attempt to.  And then I shall..

4. Enter the Good Housekeeping Novel competition (which should co-incide rather neatly with the end of the 100k in 100 days. ) Thereby proving I'm NOT still traumatised by getting nowhere in the Alan Titchmarsh competition...not in the slightest.

5. Turn 50.  And there's no way I can get out of this one, unfortunately.  I might even start to turn grey gracefully (or is that called 'throwing in the towel?)

6. Take things less personally.  Just because somebody might be having a shite day and forgets to smile at me DOES NOT mean they hate me or that they're planning to overthrow me or something equally sinister. And just becasue somebody has a different opinion to me, does NOT mean they're automatically right.  I mean, come ON now, you're a grown woman what the heck's wrong with you?!
7. Keep taking the tablets - 'cos they're obviously working!

8. Embrace another Christmas.  Again, unusually for me, I actually welcomed this Christmas and all who sailed in her.  I smiled in the face of shopping, I skipped through the card-writing and the present-wrapping and I trilled every time a festive song came on the radio. I even BOUGHT the Christmas No.1 - I mean, how much more embracing could I have got?!

9. Write more.  Oh, have I already said that?  Okay then, BLOG more.

10. Make more lists.  Lists is good.

And in true Cooper New Year tradition (they can be a miserable bunch) tonight I shall be in bed at half past nine with a good book, a cheeky husband, a mug of Ovaltine and a warm pussy.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!