January is such hard work

I can only apologise for my long absence. I was away in Canada for a month and when I got home we didn’t seem to be any closer to buying our new house than we had been before we left. Our rental house was looking and feeling increasingly like an encampment rather than a home and despair was starting to take hold. Eventually the seemingly impossible happened, the whole mess resolved itself and we managed to move in just before Christmas. Then family tragedy struck and I felt even less inclined to write than I had before.

However, at some point you have to take yourself in hand and get on with whatever it is that passes for normal life. Although in theory I’m an advocate for disorder, there has been far too much of it in recent months for my liking. I needed a plan and immediately thought of Adriene, the smiley yoga teacher from Texas who gives all those free online lessons.  I discovered her YouTube videos in lockdown and then last year I did Adriene’s 30-day January yoga challenge. I just knew that I needed to do it again: it would be good for me mentally and physically, and would establish wonderful habits that would take me right through the year. I’m so deluded.

Okay, I admit that it was probably good for me physically – now I’m in my 60s I can’t deny the benefits of daily stretching – but I’m not sure that trying to shoe-horn daily yoga into my life has been that beneficial overall. There was that Saturday when I hadn’t got around to doing my daily practice, although I had managed to drink two generous glasses of Cointreau, and I found myself on the yoga mat just before midnight. The inevitable happened and I did fall over, but I didn’t seem to mind. Then one afternoon I was doing my session at 5 o’clock and Jasper the cat appeared, obviously feeling very strongly that his supper should really be my priority. His solution was to wind himself around my arms and legs until we both nearly came to grief.

I did my final session on Tuesday night at 10.30 after having spent the day in London. I celebrated with truffle brie on crackers. Looking back on those 30 days, it all feels a bit bonkers. Yoga at midnight – what was I thinking? However, I did manage to do it every day for a month, which feels like something. And my body is grateful. And I’m sure Adriene’s proud of me. But still…

I’m thinking that next January I’ll skip the yoga altogether, eat lots of gooey cheese on crackers, indulge liberally in Cointreau and take more trips to London. There’s something so calming and life-enhancing about wandering through Fortnum and Mason’s beautifully tempting displays of food and drink that I’m sure it must be incredibly good for me. Now those are wonderful habits I can take right through the year.