(source)

I don’t know about you, but I find the Great British winter a dismal time.  We’ve reached that time of the year as we approach the shortest day when it is dark until after 7am, dark again at 4pm, some days it hardly gets light at all here on the fens.  If it wasn’t for my Lumie Alarm clock I’m not sure I’d get out of bed at all.

I start to get the winter blues some time after Bonfire Night on 5th November and they last pretty much through until I see my first daffodil, sometime in March (if the seasons are behaving).

For the time of year it has been deceptively mild – warm even by November standards.  But it’s not the temperature that gets me, readers, it’s the dark.

But December is a bit of respite because there are so many brightly coloured lights and decorations, bizarrely flavoured coffee in Starbucks, presents to buy (and receive) and a big tree in my living room waiting to be decorated.  Himself and I are home alone (avec kitties) as all other family members are away and quite frankly, after the year I’ve had, I cannot wait for some peace, quiet, delicious food and alone time with the beloved.

December Intentions

1.  Write and post the Christmas cards by 10th December
2. Work the Mill Road Winter Fair – I’ll be opening the clinic for free massage tasters and wearing tinsel in my hair. What more do you want?
3. Make the mincemeat by 5th December
4. Get the Christmas cards/gift vouchers for clients written and posted by 16th December (which is also the date of the annual Christmas trip to see the best band in the world).
5. Make stollen and gingerbread by 20th December (there will be updates on this as this year I try to make them wheat free).
6. Master the art of the Yule Log for New Year.

(A lot of food related stuff there eh? But it is Christmas! All the recipe links take you to last year’s Vegan Christmas Recipes – see the whole set here)

November in Review

1. Finish reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” – DONE you can read my review here
2. Clean out the pantry – I just did this.  I couldn’t announce to the world I’d failed on this front again.  These lists do make me accountable!
3. Order the Christmas cards and start finding out what people want for Christmas (always a long and difficult process) – DONE
4. Write at least the first 2 days of the aforementioned Foundation Course – DONE (in fact the whole thing is written, it just needs a bit(lot) of tidying up)
5. Start Playing Little Big Planet again (played this for the first time in 2 years the other night and forgot how much fun it was. I need more fun in my life – everything is always work, work, work!) – NOT DONE – work has been super busy!  Which is a good thing of course but, oh my I am looking forward to those two weeks off!

As you read this I am on my way back from Manchester after seeing the wonderful Black Stone Cherry – enjoy, share a secret at the end and have a wonderful weekend!

1) I’m 5′3″ (1.6m) tall and weigh 9st1lb (58kg/126lb)

2) I am obsessed with Stephen King, Charles Dickens and Arjuna’s quest in the Baghavad Gita.  I believe Mr Guppy to be second only to Krishna in the great heroes of literature.

3) I have a black eyeliner in the following places: handbag, bedside cabinet, desk drawer, cupboard at work, car glove compartment…

4) …likewise painkillers.

5) I believe in God, but have very little time for organised religion.  I don’t think God has a white beard, but remain open-minded on the subject.

6) I could never get into Twilight, or True Blood or any other modern vampire fiction for the simple reason that there will only ever be one vampire story for me.

7) I have been obsessed with human anatomy all my life. Upon every visit to a library or bookstore as a child I asked if there were any new “body books” out.  The first television programme I ever watched when left alone with the TV was one about childbirth.  It is no wonder I do the job I do.

Giving up my addiction to celebrity gossip was far harder than giving up smoking.  I am never tempted by Marlboros anymore but Heat magazine tries to catch me in its clutches every week.

9) Sometimes I wish I’d been born 20 years earlier so I could have followed Led Zepplin around the world…

10) …or 100 years earlier so I could have written awesome Victorian Gothic novels.

11) I wish I could savour fine wines, but they give me a headache.

12) I’m never happier than I am by the sea.

13) I have wavy hair that naturally dries into a 1970s Farrah Fawcett flick.  I hate it and have spent my life straightening it.

14) I am really freckly on my face shoulders and arms.  My body and legs, oddly, are not.

15) I have never really known what I want to do with my life.  But I think I’m closer to finding it than I ever have been before.

16) I have a ridiculously large make-up collection.  I tend not to go anywhere where I can wear a lot of it these days, although I have been known to teach yoga in green glittery eyeliner

17) I start every day with a cup of hot water and lemon…

(that orange blur there? That’s my brother’s insane dog)

18) ….closely followed by strong coffee.  I only have one coffee a day these days, although occasionally we have what are known as “two coffee days”.

19) I’ve always wanted an older brother.  Noel Gallagher would fit the bill perfectly.

20) I really hate snark….but at the same time I kind of do like Simon Cowell.  As my friend Matt says; enigma, thy name is Rachel.

Tell me a secret readers, I won’t tell a soul!

(inspired by Jenna)

I woke up this morning and realised November is over half way through.  How did that happen?  Where did it go?  Christmas is almost upon us (yesterday I made curried parsnip soup to begin the festivities) and in just four short weeks I’ll be closing the clinic for the holidays.

Wow!

(source)

This year has been incredible on so many levels; but it’s also been hard. Really, really hard.

Ten and a half months ago I wrote a post choosing my word of the year and what I hoped to do to get there.  I chose Joy.  I chose that word rather naively hoping that, after a couple of years of trials and tribulations I could just be allowed to be happy and joyous.

Life doesn’t work like that though does it?  To be happy, to live the life you dream of, to make the waves you want to make you have to work your butt off.

With the benefit of hindsight’s 20/20 vision it would be more pertinent to have chosen Healing as my word of the year.  Because there has been a lot of that readers.  But out of that healing has come joy abundant and I find myself, at the end of this year with a little business that’s almost sustaining itself, the ability to pick and choose my own clients and my own hours, sitting down to breakfast every morning with Himself safe in the knowledge that these days neither of us have to commute anywhere very often.  There’s food in the fridge, a roof over our heads (although I predict a move in our future – more on that next year), money in the bank (mostly).

There are memories, like our amazing month in Australia to look back on, and the beginnings of a future plan to look forward to.  There has been the arrival of Dave the Stray Cat (much to the consternation of the spoiled house-cats).  There’s been Pilates Teacher Training (done and done – thanks crooked body for being so unimaginably strong!) and that phenomenal weekend in Durham when I got the green light to start to teach BWY Foundation Course Tutor Training (whatever I say, yoga will always be my first and foremost love).

But then there’s been the chronic anxiety and the terrible health, the low iron levels, the damn trapped nerve in my neck - I’ve written a lot of Small Stones this year to try to keep me present and a lot of gratitude lists to help me remember how much worse it could be.  There’s been counselling and coaching and a lot of lightbulb moments about where I’m going wrong, where the anxiety is coming from and where I’m self-sabotaging.   There’s been a lot of blood tests and a lot of trips to the doctor and that horrible moment when I realised that why yes osteoporosis is hereditary and I await an appointment for my bone scan.

I made the decision to stop eating wheat and start eating meat (there’s a poem in that), which was a hard decision but the right one for me for many, many reasons.  I have written a lot, but none of it what I thought it was going to be (maybe that will become clearer next year, maybe it won’t) and I think I may have a better handle on my finances (with thanks to the amazing Nona Jordan and this course – which I cannot recommend highly enough. There’s another one starting in January)

There are big things coming I know, not least that move I was talking about and the whole writing and presenting my first Foundation Course.  But that’s OK.  I am a different person now to who I was 12 months ago, as though I have been broken apart and rebuilt, and I will be different again in 12 months’ time.

2011 – you’ve taught me an important lesson in balance.

2012 – I’m ready for you, bring it!