Start As You Mean To Go On

I think that’s excellent advice for the first day of the New Year.  I get so excited and hopeful about new beginnings.  I am one of those people who do that tradition where you fill up a mason jar with nice things that happen to you throughout the year and then you open and reminisce on the last day of the year.

This year was different.  This year I was sick.  I had barely been able to keep my eyes open at work and then when I went home, I ate chips for dinner and then went to bed at 9.  I woke up in 2015 feeling much better for having slept through the night.  But still full of a cold.

But I had plans.  And I got to spend the first day of 2015 with friends and having fun.  Doing the important things.  Illness be damned!

I drove to see my friend Danielle, who lives only about an hour away from me but that is really far away when you are both grown ups and have to schedule hang out times.  We exchanged Christmas presents.  And she got me a One Direction advent calendar (because I will always be a tween at heart) and most importantly, a Doctor Who necklace.  She made me pizza which we ate before heading to the cinema.  Unfortunately the session to see The Hobbit was all sold out but we brought a ticket for the next showing in two hours time.

So we had two hours to kill.  We went to a cafe and on the way bumped into a friend of Danielle’s who I have become friends with thanks to social media.  It was one of those weird things where you meet someone who you have never met but it’s totally cool and you act like you’ve met each other a billion times.  We hugged like old friends and her husband was a bit confused that he had no idea who his wife’s clearly very good friend was.  I explained succinctly “We’re friends from the internet”.

It was a very cool moment because we’ve tried to meet up before but the plans have always fallen through, usually at the last minute.  And as Danielle pointed out, if we had gone to the original session of The Hobbit, we wouldn’t have met her.  So that made the meeting all the sweeter.

Danielle and I went on to the cafe and talked about lots of things and resolutions.  Important things and not important things.  All the sorts of things that you can talk about with best friends.

And then we saw The Hobbit and it was far too emotional.  I keep thinking about it at points during the day and feeling the wind go out of my sails just that little bit.

I drove home far too late and hung out with my dog, who is the best.

An excellent day and I hope to have many more like that this year.