James Proclaims!

The bells have tolled, the ball has dropped and in various countries, around the world, people have eaten grapes, carried suitcases a short distance or watched an old comedy sketch on TV. There may have been fireworks. There will certainly have been drinking. Even I, an exhausted parent of two small children, managed to stay awake until the midnight of my allotted time zone to see in the New Year.

2024 is now the past, while 2025 has ceased to be the future and is very much the now.

The debate about when Christmas is officially over will no doubt be gathering heat in households. For some it is already over, while others will continue to eke out a semblance of joy for a few more days. But sooner or later, we’ll all have our Epiphany, and we’ll discard the alcohol, the sugar and the potato-based snacks (some of which contain up to 40% real potato) and decide to take on a healthier lifestyle. Which will last about as long as it takes us to realise that we still have quite a lot of those potato-based snacks alongside a fair amount of chocolates in the cupboard and it would make more sense to start leading a healthier lifestyle once we’ve ploughed our way through those. And actually drinking a little bit of wine and/or whisky and/or gin might even be quite good for us. In moderation of course. But life is harder without that daily moderation and who wants to make life harder at the start of the year?

I mean it’s still winter right? Let’s at least wait until the weather improves before making any drastic lifestyle changes.

Nonetheless, the start of a new calendar year is a time for reflection. And after the third glass of wine, we’re all feeling a little reflective. And of course we’re grateful for all that we have. But things could still be…

Y’know…

A little bit better.

I mean those clothes that we’ve all held onto on the basis that they’ll fit again when we lose the weight…

…well they’ve been in the wardrobe for five years and…

well…

It doesn’t seem like they are going to fit any time soon.

So maybe some resolutions would be a good idea.

But this is a nice wine and it would be a shame to waste it. And it’s on offer in Tesco, so it would be idiocy not to stock up on it.

So maybe we’ll keep drinking a moderate amount and think about some other areas of self-improvement.

Just one or two a day perhaps.

Or two or three.

Bottles.

I have been guilty in the past of not taking the tradition of New Year Resolutions as seriously as perhaps I could.

But this year I am deadly serious. I have some resolutions and I fully intend to see them through to their bitter end.

I do not intend to lose weight, I will not be writing that novel and really can’t imagine I’m going to be any better at managing my finances any time soon.

But I do need to get revenge on my house and all its myriad failings as a home. After a torrid year of electrical, roofing and plumbing problems, I am going to get better at dealing with some of this stuff myself. Because getting a competent tradesperson to actually turn up for the big jobs is, as I have discovered, quite possible. But getting them to turn up for small jobs is less possible. Even if I could afford to pay them. Which I can’t. So I need to get better at DIY.

Thus my main New Year’s Resolution for 2025 is to get better at maintaining my home. And I’m not just going hope this happens. I’ve actually signed up for a course in basic home maintenance. ‘Basic’ is currently the level I aspire to. But if it goes well, I might even sign up for some more advanced stuff. Like how to repair washing machines. Which is also a course you can do.

I’m not expecting miracles. There is a reason I’m not already good at this stuff. But I cannot let my house continue to get away with the level of abuse it has subjected me to in 2024.

By this time next year, I will be regaling readers of this blog with tales of shelves that have been put up (and stayed up), some sightly fancier light fittings in my bedroom and some fairly competent painting and decorating of the living room.

Obviously, in order to do this, I will not just need to complete my home maintenance course. I’ll also need to be a bit more committed to blogging, as I have neglected this little online sanctuary in recent years.

So perhaps ‘blogging more often’ can be another resolution. After all, the bar is fairly low on that one at present. I can definitely achieve that.

Hmmm, now that I’m in a resolutionary mood, what else can I achieve?

Perhaps I’ll go back to eating potato-based snacks with a higher potato content.

Eventually.