Year: 2019

I’ve not been to the gym for a couple of months whilst I get my hip and ankle issues sorted. Shockwave treatment worked a charm, and physio is going well so far which leaves me confident of getting back to some level of fitness sooner rather than later.

I don’t do New Year resolutions but will admit I did have some soft goals for the year around shifting a little weight; specifically with a trip to New York in June and my sisters wedding in August as milestones so as I hadn’t been able to exercise as much as I wanted, I was starting to feel a bit meh about myself.

And now it’s March (March!) and with a tentative all-clear from my physio to start doing more exercise, with strict instructions NOT to do any dead-lifts and if I want to run to TAKE IT EASY! the time to give myself a kick and mix things up a little has arrived.

And, with a level of accountability in mind, here is what I’m thinking.

Step 1: Quit the gym.

I know, it sounds counter productive but my enthusiasm had been waning through the latter part of 2018 anyway. I’m very goal focused and after achieving and bettering my 1RMs I could feel myself losing interest. I know I could keep going and set new/different goals, but I’ve lost my enthusiasm for it. I’m also going to be movement limited until I get through a few more weeks of physio so this way I can manage it myself.

(There is a LOT more behind this decision, but for now it’s the right thing to do).

Step 2: Set a new goal.

I was out walking Dave (the staffy) last Saturday at a local park and we happened to be there at the same time as a ParkRun. I watched all the people, of varying ages, abilities, sizes, and speeds, and it took me back to my days at jogScotland.

I miss running.

I don’t want to run marathons, but a 5km run each Saturday morning feels like an attainable goal over the next couple of months. 5km by the end of May at the latest.

Step 3: Get a new routine!

Quitting the gym means I have two evenings spare (the third session was a Saturday morning… see step 2 above!).

Weather permitting I can walk home from work in just over an hour, and this’ll allow me to revisit some podcasts that have dropped off my radar. I’ve always enjoyed walking and it’s always nice to wander home and unwind from the day.

And I have the option of picking up a NextBike from right outside my office, and cycling most of the way home before dropping it off. Again, weather will dictate, as will remembering to take my cycle helmet with me!

And, oddly, I have just joined another gym, so at least I have some options (and being a chain, it’s a lot cheaper per month). It also means I can hop on a treadmill to get to my 5k goal.

All change then.

It feels good to be moving on and trying something new, even if I’m not fully sure how it will shake out. When I first signed up for a boot-camp a couple of years ago I didn’t think I’d last more than the 12 weeks it ran for, so the fact I made it past two years is great! I may venture back there in the future, but for now it looks like 2019 will be a year of trying a few different things in the hope that something new ‘sticks’.

Wish me luck!

It is such a lovely shade of blue. Tiny sparkles bloomed as the early spring sun danced off the bonnet as I walked towards it, key fob in hand. A short press of a button brought bright amber flashes to signal that my new car was unlocked and waiting for me.

It’s a Mazda3 in Blue Reflex Mica if you must know. The colour isn’t important for this tale though, but the model is.

I drove it out of the garage and turned and headed West. A first drive deserves to be more than the journey home, and I had plans to head to Helensburgh, savour it’s views of the Clyde then turn and head up over the hills to Balloch, flirting with Loch Lomond before taking the long way home towards Drymen and the hope for quieter country roads to explore, twists and turns to enjoy with a new machine under my control.

Minutes into my journey it started. At first it was just a curious yet explainable coincidence, I had just left the Mazda garage after all, so of course I’d see another Mazda3 nearby. But soon there was another, and another, and yet another. Differing colours and wheel trims aside, the roads were suddenly awash with Mazdas, or so it seemed.

I knew that it wasn’t actually the case though, that there wasn’t suddenly an influx of Mazdas driving round the West of Scotland, it was a simple case of frequency illusion/cognitive bias, aka Baader-Meinhoff. You’ve no doubt experienced it yourself; A friend mentions a new band, a couple of days later you hear them on the radio, the following week they are touring in your home-town.

Last year the humorist David Sedaris visited Glasgow as part of a promotion tour for his next book. I’ve been a fan for years, his wonderful wordplay, sardonic and dark imagery, as well as the heartfelt and raw honesty of his writing was a pleasure to hear. He told some stories, read some of his pieces and mentioned, somewhat in passing although the topic is an important one for him, how sad he was when he walked around Glasgow, seeing how dirty and litter-ridden it had become. He wasn’t wrong and having being based in the city centre for the past few years I can attest to his statement. It really is a dirty city these days.

The more I walk around, the more I’m noticing how dirty the streets are everywhere. Walking the dogs is making me look down even more, and it feels like the more I see, the worse it gets. What has changed? Why are our streets littered with mess?

There are obvious answers, Council budgets are stretched and getting thinner, so bins aren’t emptied as often nor are the streets cleaned regularly, all of this is compounded by the glib nonchalance of those who drop rubbish wherever they see fit. But then, the streets are already littered so what difference does it make? Yet maybe these are both symptoms of a wider rise in the throwaway/takeaway society which supports the idea that everything is disposable.

Is this the tip of an iceberg, as we’ve moved our focus to recycling, and having the right bins for everything, is it now MORE of a hassle to put things in a bin? Is it perhaps a push back on that?

Or is my own view, the move towards being better at recyclying, more aware of plastics, is that throwing these things into sharper relief? Is it bringing that cognitive bias to bear?

I wish I still had the photo as the object itself is hard to describe. A metal fork-like hand on one end and at the other, attached via a thick fabric webbing strap, a bar that didn’t fit or integrate with the fork-like hand in anyway whatsoever. It was an odd thing, no clear use for it could be imagined but it was obviously manufactured en masse so definitely, at some point in its past, had a purpose.

The last I saw it was in a cupboard at my parents old house, a hazy memory of an odd object that was easily discarded when they moved largely because none of us had any idea what it was, having been found in the garage when my parents had moved in some 40 odd years before. Was it farming gear? It had that level of industrial look and feel about it, yet it was clean and untarnished. Perhaps an emergency tool of some sort, although for what I have no idea, given it was incapable of gripping anything, let alone itself. Most odd indeed.

I have no such objects in my possession, not yet at least, but as I’m going through another bout of clearing out, going through cupboards and drawers and find myself questioning why I have three unused notebooks, four rolls of partially used sellotape, two rarely used scarves, six (!) bottles of unopened moisturiser of differing brands, and don’t even get me started on all those out of date spices and baking ingredients at the back of THAT cupboard in the kitchen.

It all has to go, and with it I’m finding other items than can be passed on, recycled or, via a recently discovered Facebook group, bartered; a bluetooth Apple keyboard and trackpad, a litre bottle of Southern Comfort, an iron and ironing board, a camera tripod, a pair of walking shoes that I bought online that never ever fitted.

It is as cathartic now as it was a couple of years ago when I last went through this process. Going through your belongings also lets you rediscover things that are very much out of sight and completely out of mind; those exercise bands that will be good for your physio routine, that old spare hard drive you’d meant to trash last year but never got around to, or the unread books that are lurking behind a cupboard door instead of on the unread/shame shelf on the bookcase.

And no, I’m not holding these items and hoping to detect joy, there is no Kondo-ing here. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a reasonable approach if you have never done a decluttering and already know you have too much stuff (and let’s be honest, most of us already know), but did that last time I moved so anything else is a newer purchase and easily identifiable as needed versus wanted versus ‘brings me joy’.

The items that I want to keep, the decorations and art work, the memory box items, are already stored. But now it’s about less, about fewer, about removing as much clutter as possible so there is less to move. That box of cables, untouched in a year has gone, that drawer of random iPhone accessories, pens, instruction manuals, and a random tennis ball, gone. I am no longer holding on to items ‘just in case’. The advantage of having done a big declutter a couple of years ago evident by the things that I took with me when I moved, still lying untouched are easy to identify and discard. I do not need those items. They are history.

Clothes remain the last bastion where I seem unable to slim things down too far – an interesting juxtaposition between my never decreasing waistline – and whilst I did take some time last week to do another clear out of my clothes, managing to fill one black bag, I’ll take one more pass through my shirts and that’ll be that (for now).

And then, with my possessions paired down, into boxes they will go awaiting the day when they are lifted and shifted, two men and a van style, from my current abode to their van and on to a new home, a new beginning, and a chance to start fresh once more.

I’ve made myself this promise twice now, yet remain determined that this time moving to a new home will also institute a change in my approach to possessions, a change towards considered purchases, a change of thought from a ‘quick Amazon order’ to a delayed purchasing habit, not just for my own desire for less clutter, but because as I get older I know I need to be better to the world around me too.

So rather than succumb to the onslaught of influencers and online bargains, I will aim to delay the instant gratification of purchasing. I will make lists and act on them later, once I’m sure I actually NEED each item, rather than giving in to my whimsy. I’ve tried this before and it works, revisit the desire to order a new lamp and a few days later it doesn’t seem quite as appealing, I have lamps, I like them, I do not need more (this is a terrible example as moving to a larger place suggests we may well need to purchase another lamp or two but I digress).

How much does that new magazine rack cost to make? How much to ship? What is it made from? How is it packaged? Does it come from a sustainable source? Is mass produced by a machine?

These are the questions I hope I will ask. I’ve slowly been phasing out the flat packed in favour of the hand-made (and antique), choosing to spend more for sustainable quality, and this in itself becomes an incentive to pause and consider each purchase. Yet I know I will not succeed, not fully, I know I will falter, but I will try. After all, there is a future to think of, and between us, I hope we hold each other as accountable as we can be.

I was packing over the weekend and came across a series of books, professional books bought for a previous role that I wasn’t able to fulfil due to being made redundant. I added them to the charity shop pile with a smile, a different life back then, 4 short years ago, and I realised that I have moved on too. I am not the same man I was back then, I have worked hard and slowly managed to declutter many things, leaving myself happier and more content than ever before. I have fewer possessions, and far more room in my heart for what the future holds.

And all of it has been considered and deliberate, and all those choices add up to where I am today, and where I will be in my future as I settle in to a new home.