Sunday 1 January 2023
Well, well, 2023 has commenced. The forecasted snow did not materialise, there has instead been a bit of rain. I have no idea what 2023 has in store, what will happen with my manuscript, whether I’ll still be writing this blog, how much time we’ll spend in London and Scotland, what work I will be doing, how many friends and family will make the journey up here to visit, what we will do with the garden and whether we’ll be able to make any of the changes/additions we’d like to be able to afford on the house.
While many years don’t go as anticipated, for 2023 I don’t even know what would be reasonable to expect or hope for. However, in an ideal world we’d find the money to have a second bathroom, an outdoor office and an area of the garden landscaped and made suitable as a viable vegetable garden. Smaller, more realistic expenditures would be curtains and blinds, some massive rugs for the cold, porcelain floors, wardrobe and drawers for clothes would be a joy and to make the hall and utility room look functional and also welcoming (the utility room does not now look at all like it did after I gave it an initial tidy, in part because we have had to store paint pots, spare floor tiles and worktop wood in there now the boiler cupboard has more pipes and boxes).
On a less materialistic and positive note, this month we should be able to find homes for everything and make it look more homely with what we already have. If all goes to plan, I will varnish and thus finish the bed frame today. We will then be able to assemble it in my study/spare room (this is going to be an issue; we have no instructions and it doesn’t look as straightforward as you might imagine for a truckle bed). We’re both also really looking forward to having our first visitors, which, if all goes to plan, will be one friend in mid-January and another friend the following weekend. I’m really looking forward to showing people around our amazing part of the country. We are all well aware that plans could change as the likelihood of challenging weather is high in January. We now have a date to work towards, 13 January, to make everything look as homely and welcoming as possible. The remaining Velux blinds are supposedly due for delivery on the 13th, though that’s a delayed date from the end of November so who knows when they will actually arrive. We have a single mattress arriving on the 5th and on the 10th or 11th two other pieces of second hand furniture should arrive, an Indian bed (for seating rather than sleeping) and a metal cage-type locker that should tidy up the hallway a bit as we currently have nowhere to put shoes. That furniture is currently in a shop in Rochester, Kent, awaiting pick-up and delivery via a courier company to Scotland.
Today, new year’s day, I envisage a walk, mulled wine, two coats of varnish on the bed frame and more sorting and banging nails into the wall to hang up pictures. Here’s hoping 2023 is a year full of good health, opportunities, quality time with friends and family, adventures and an improvement on 2022’s Brexit/Covid/Government/price rises/climate disasters. It would be good to have no more plumbing and heating issues too, but I suspect that’s a bit overly optimistic.
