There’s a time to make lists: there’s a time to unwind. Paradoxically what’s most likely the year’s prime list making time, New Year’s day, is also a public holiday.
I gave up making New Year resolutions several years ago but I replaced the resolutions with a series of to-do list, each with a different heading e.g. personal; health and fitness; home etc. This year in the interest of a chilled New Year’s day there was no frenetic writing of multiple lists of things to do over the coming twelve months but instead I thought of stuff I would like to do over the next decade and as I seem to have difficulty breaking the list-making habit, I listed them. They are:
- Read Great Expectations.
- Learn to code.
- Go to a drawing class.
- Learn a couple of poems, off by heart, each year.
- Walk the Wicklow Way.
- Read Hamlet.
- Learn how to do the front crawl, as in properly with my head under the water.
- Make a patchwork quilt.
- Climb the Sugar Loaf mountain (if you don’t know it it’s more of a hill and a walk rather than a climb).
- Read The Mill on the Floss.
- See Mrs Delany’s flower collages in the British Museum.
- Re-visit Florence.
- While in Florence shop at the nearby outlets. #philistine
- Improve my posture.
- Do a ruthless decluttering of my wardrobe.
- Spend three months in Paris perfecting my French. Well, it’s a wish list!
- Read A Doll’s House and see it performed on stage.
- Visit Stockholm.
- Learn how to make sourdough bread.
- Take a trip to Donegal as it’s one of the few counties in Ireland I’ve never seen.
- Go on a yoga holiday.
- Read Mrs Dalloway.
- Be brave, and buy a round the world ticket. That’s a huge maybe!
- Do a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) course.
- Eat in a vegan way for a month. Er, will I last four weeks!
- Attend one of the Guardian weekend writing classes in London.
- Try out a silent retreat.
- Read some history of art books: I am totally ignorant on the subject.
- Spend a few days in West Cork.
- Join a camera club. I’ve been thinking about it for an age and haven’t yet got around to singing up.
- Go to the Port Elliot festival.
- Keep a diary, I won’t aim to write in it every day, an every so often entry would be ok.
- Visit Northumberland.
- Do something that’s useful; it’s a nebulous notion and I am not sure what it might be.
Who knows how many of these I will have done by 2024, that’s partly in my control but also down to whatever imponderables the fates have in store for me. I hope the fates are kind.
I wish you, belatedly, a very happy 2014.
Just Add Attitude 
Wishing you well in 2014 – I have wondered about those Guardian classes too, and yes Mrs Dalloway is on my list, Woolf wrote not far from me and I’d like to visit there too 🙂
Thank you. I am not sure when I will get to one of the Guardian classes but when I do I will write about it on the blog. I often check them out on the website and some of them sound very interesting.
I hope you get to see the place where Virginia Woolf did her writing. 😉
Dear B
Happy New Year to you too and health to enjoy at least some of your wish list
Hx
Dear H,
Thank you for your kind wish for my wish list.
Bx
I love this list! I have a similar “bucket list” where I keep track of all the things that I’d like to do one day. I agree, it’s much better than a New Year’s resolution. I’m especially fond of the idea of a yoga vacation- it sounds wonderfully relaxing 🙂
I hope you get to do the items on your bucket list. I believe that writing things down makes them more likely to happen, so I look forward to looking back at my list in ten years time to see which of them I have done. 😉
I love the 10 year plan and so many sound totally doable. Best of luck with your to do lists, (love that idea) Happy happy New Year!
Thanks, and yes I agree many of the things on my list are very doable, so hopefully I will tick off most of them but I will be kind to myself if I don’t get them all done.
Happy, happy New Year to you too!
I hope the fates are kind too. And do, please do, buy a round the world ticket and you could visit my land and be my welcome guest 🙂
Thank you, that’s so very kind. 😉 😉 😉
Wow! Your list is certainly ambitious, B.! But I love people who have no boundaries and push themselves to do better. There is something courageous about them. They don’t settle … they live as it should be!
I love the classes and the books that you have picked! I look forward to reading your posts about them.
I wish you all the best for 2014, B.!
Love,
F. Xx
Oops, I should have made it clearer that it’s a list with a ten year timescale which, of course, makes it not so ambitious!
I wonder will we all still be blogging in ten years time. Anyway while I am blogging away, and I am not planning to stop in the foreseeable future, I will post about any of the items on my list that I do (well maybe not reading the books and plays).
Thanks for you good wishes for 2014 Francesca and I wish you all that you wish for yourself in the coming year.
Bxxx
B
You so have to do the Guardian writing course! And for a more modest ambition, we are returning to Northumberland this year. E will happily act as tour guide (around his ancient family sites) should you wish to join us for a couple of days!!
Dear G
Than you so much for your VERY kind offer which is so much appreciated but I am probably not going to Northumberland in 2014 as holiday-wise I have a few other things (vaguely) in mind.
I will talk to you soon. Take care.
B xxx
Good for you, an enviable list! Shoot big, that’s the way to make things happen. Happy 2014! 🙂
Thank you so much and a happy 2014 to you too. 😉
Happy New Year, dear B!!!
I love your to do list – a couple random thoughts on my end: I absolutely second your desire to go see Stockholm – it is such an elegant, beautiful city. Great idea reading Hamlet: I have only read bits of it and loved the writing of (quoting Vince Vaughn in Starsky & Hutch) “our buddy Bill Shakespeare” 😉 Finally, I think you have already accomplished the third to last and last bullets of your list by writing and sharing with us your beautiful and inspiring blog 🙂
May 2014 have all the best in store for you!
Stefano
And a very happy New Year to you too Stefano.
I am looking forward to seeing Stockholm (whenever I get there) as I have heard so many good things about it.
Thank you very much for the compliment on the blog. I agree it is a form of a diary but I would also like to scribble some things down in a note book every so often – stuff that I might not write about on the blog.
I hope you have a great 2014 and that it brings lots of good things your way. 😉
All the best from B.
Excellent list. I did a couple of these in 2013 : Mrs Dalloway, Drawing Classes – so I feel I’m in good company – and I’m jealous about some of the others which would be a stretch from here. So look forward to hear how you get on in 2014 – hope it’s a great one.
Thank you for your good wishes for 2014 and the same wish to you. I won’t get the whole list done in 2014 as the list has a ten year timescale but hopefully I will cross a few things off.
Thanks for your comment.
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That reminds me to have another look at my bucket list. Best of luck with yours and if you want company going up the Sugar Loaf give me a shout. Haven’t been up in ages! All the best for 2014.
Thanks Trish for your good luck wishes with my bucket list and the same wish back to you with yours. May take you up on that offer of company going up the Sugar Loaf – I have never been up it. All the best to you too for 2014.
As commented earlier, that’s a very ambitious list — even for 10 years! But I wouldn’t be surprised if you do every one of them. But leave some time for serendipity — something that comes up suddenly and surprisingly. I wish you more of them than a planned agenda. Here’s to happy happenings in 2014 and beyond! Eileen
Hi Eileen and a very happy New Year to you and Honey.
Yes, I am with you on serendipity, we just never know what’s going to happen in our unforetold futures.
Hopefully I will get a lot of the items on the list done over the next ten years, but if I don’t I will be kind to myself when reviewing it a decade hence.
All the very best from B 😉
I’ve come visiting from Chas Spain’s World Tour. I am relieved you have given yourself a decade for this list. If I wrote a list there would be quite a lot of overlap. Happy 2014!
Thank you for visiting. Yes, I cannot imagine telescoping that list into twelve months. I am pleased to hear that quite a lot of things on your list would overlap with mine as it’s nice to meet in the virtual sense a liked-minded blogger. Happy 2014 to you too!
Great to-do list! Good luck in completing them.
Thanks. I think I may need that luck!
Quite an impressive to-do-list! 🙂 Good luck! Godt nytt år!
All the best for 2014, B!
Love, DIna
Thanks Dina and all the very best to the four of you for 2014.
Love B xx
What a wonderful list – I may steal a couple or ten for myself. Learn two poems and read Mill on the Floss I really like. Northumberland is one of my favourite counties and I hope you visit this year. Belated Happy New Year to you.
I am probably not going to get to Northumberland this year as I have a few vague plans for other trips. I have heard so many good things about Northumberland that I am sure I will love it when I do get there.
Happy New Year to you too!
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this is an impressive list! wow. I had so little time to visit my favourite blogs in January, so I missed out this one. will slowly get back to my reading routine now. January kicked off insanely 😉
Please, please no need to worry about not reading my blog. I am happy (and honoured) that you visit sometimes. 😉 😉
how is your new house doing? 🙂 will you share it soon?
Thanks for asking. My house is still standing! I haven’t started any work yet but I have a much clearer idea of what I will do but getting it done may be a few months away. 😉
oooh, exciting. set up a pinterest for it yet? 🙂
Not yet although I have pinned a few things for inspiration to other boards. 😉
I think it’s really the most useful side of Pinterest. that and wedding planning (not my department tho) 😉
Pinterest is great for saving ideas and inspirations, 😉 ;_
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