relaxedOverall, 2009 was pretty good for us. For a start ... House ! We have one, and it is all ours ... well, we own roughly all of the letterbox, the rest belongs to the bank at the moment. I really like this house, it's very liveable. The garden is amazing, too, there's always something blossoming or appearing to surprise us (we have Stealth Rose Bushes, every time we look closely at some part of the garden another one appears). We still have work to do, there are plans afoot to put in double-glazed windows, and revamp the kitchen, and re-lay the paving in the patio, and then there's the painting ... but we intend to be here for a good number of years, so it'll all get done in time.
2009 was also a good year for cycling - the bike I bought at the beginning of December 2008 has now done 5346km - roughly 5100km for the year, then. I'm certainly fitter than at this time last year, and seem to be pretty healthy. At some point I need to get some weights so my upper body doesn't get too neglected again, but apart from that, things are generally well in the physical realm. Even my knees are behaving themselves - not sure if that's because I've been fencing less, or because I took some glucosamine supplements for a few months, or because I've been cycling a lot, but it's nice whatever the reason.
I read about 20 books in 2009 - which feels somewhat pathetic compared to the people reporting 50, 100, 120 or more books for the year, but I usually choose to spend time at home doing other things, and most of my reading time is commuting time - which went down quite a bit when I started regularly cycling to work. I'll be happy if I get through 25-30 books this year.
So, plans for 2010. Cycle to work regularly, of course - tricky at the moment, because I don't have a locker in or near the changerooms (I'm 15th on the waiting list, apparently), so I have to take all of my work clothes in and back every time I ride in. And the changerooms aren't great - they're small, there are only three showers, and the room is poorly ventilated and gets steamed up very quickly. I'll be lobbying for improvements pretty soon, I think.
I'm planning to ride more often on weekends, too, because I'm going to enter the 210km version of Around the Bay in a Day this year - some training required !
(My longest ride ever, even when I was a competitive road cyclist, was 150km, and that was about 20 years ago ... )
I'm not sure yet what my fencing plans are, although we do have a shiny new fencing centre to play with.
At some point, I want to see if I can remember how to play the flute. Step 1 - get a flute !
And of course there's Brickvention and Continuum, and some other little convention coming up in September ...
