Okay, so it’s that time of year again. The start of a brand spanking new year.
To quote my favourite red-headed protagonist Anne Shirley, “Tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it”. 

I like to think this way about the start of a new year as well as the start of a new day. It is an opportunity to start writing the next chapter in your life, on a clean sheet of paper, with no scribbles or crossings-outs. (Please note that my favourite red-head in general is of course my lovely Mum!)

It is also the time of year for those dreaded new year’s resolutions! Even though I have a set of personal targets for this year, which if my track record is anything to go by, won’t make it past the beginning of February, I thought it might be nice to make a list of things I would like to do or enjoy during the next 12 months. This list is a lot more fun than the first one! So here we go…

Stay in if I want to
As I’ve been getting older I have come to realise that much pleasure can be taken from a quiet night in. In fact, it is very rare these days that my night is neither quiet or ‘in’. That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy going out and seeing people though. I just mean that I need to learn to not be embarrassed about wanting to stay at home.

Make sushi with my sister
Ok, so this is maybe a bit of a cheat suggestion as we have a sushi-making session booked for late January, but this idea is more about what it represents. This may sound quite contradictory considering that I have only just mentioned that I enjoy staying in, but I would quite like to experience new things, like sushi making. I don’t think I would like to sign up to classes which require me to attend for a prolonged period of time as I get bored of things quite easily, but attending one-off events would be of interest to me. This idea also represents making plans to see my lovely sister more, and this leads me nicely onto my next suggestion.

Keep in closer contact with relatives and close friends
I can be a total nightmare at staying in touch with those people that I care about. I want 2015 to be the year when making contact with people and staying in touch comes more naturally to me.

Invite friends over
Linking to an above idea, staying in doesn’t mean not having to see people. Now that I am settled in a place I call home, it would be nice to invite friends over for tea and cake, or even a meal. Unfortunately I am not very good at cooking or even being a hostess, so such events could potentially be disasterous (imagine the Miranda version of a dinner party!). But I guess my friends know me, understand that neither organisation or cooking are one of my greatest skills, and they still love me for who I am. Thankfully!

Write letters
As I’ve mentioned before, I love receiving hand-written letters in the post. But in the same way I should write letters to other people. The idea of sharing thoughts with friends in a way which doesn’t require an immediate response is a rather nice one!

Walk around my local area
The reason for this suggestion is two-fold. Firstly, even though I know it quite well, I would still like to explore my local area a lot more and find some local hidden gems. I’ll take my camera out with me and snap away at whatever takes my fancy. Also, I need to get out more and exercise. Of course I intend to do more focused exercise (reference to the other boring list of resolutions mentioned in paragraph 2), but I am sure that just getting out and about more will benefit me. Also, I won’t view this as exercise which is a bonus and will mean I am more likely to stick to it!

Visit more local places
Even though I have lived in Leicester in total for over 20 years, there are still many places i would like to visit / re-visit, and things I’d like to do.  After a bit of a Google search, here are a few of them:
Phoenix Arts Centre, Curve, New Walk Museum and their behind-the-scenes tour, Richard III visitor centre, the Secret tea rooms in Clarendon Park, the Victorian textile factory, the walking tour of stoneygate, the Town Hall tour, Towers hospital, local beer festivals and the Riverside festival in the summer. Maybe in future blog posts I’ll be able to tell you about my visits. If you know of any other fun or interesting things to do in Leicester, please let me know!

Care less about what people think of me
This is something that I have been working on for some time but it is also something that I still struggle with. In one way I fuss less about the opinions of others these days, but in another way I still want to be liked. I hate the thought of people thinking badly of me. I would like to continue to become more comfortable with who I am as a person, and accept myself regardless of what other people – who don’t know me or care about me – think of me.

Make my friends and family proud of me
There are things that I have done in the distant and not-so-distant past that I am not proud of. Whilst I become more comfortable with who I am, I also need to become more aware of other people’s feelings and needs. Maybe becoming more intune to this will help me to be less of a disaster at times, and become someone that my friends and family feel that they can be really proud to know.

As the sun sets on the first day of 2015, I wonder what the coming year might hold for me. The last couple of years have had their ups and downs, but as they say;
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift.