Is it too late or to early to make a year resolution?
Having done a bit of soul searching, I have decided to set up a few resolutions, and these have nothing to do with New Year, far from it. Here is the list, I hope that by making it public I keep to them:
1. Work: Work for a living, don't live for working. In other works leave the office earlier and don't work over the weekends, even if that means living with a bit less money at the end of the month.
2. Practise every day, at least half an hour and go to a concert at least once a month.
3. Reading. Reach one a book by an author I never heard before every month.
4. Painting. Complete a painting/drawing a month - the flower still live I started last month included!
5. Exercise. Run 5k in under 30 minutes each week.
6. Food. Make a new recipe every week.
7. Art. visit a museum/gallery once a month.
8. A new challenge. Write a novel within a year. It doesn't have to be published or be a masterpiece, the important thing is to complete it since I think this will be a perseverance test. Once of the most difficult anyone can do.
9. Keep a diary of the progress I made each week on these tasks.
10. Learn to count (I had to revise the numeration!).

Philosophy Lesson (not to be taken seriously)

The ages of man (and woman, of course):

1. Childhood: the age of discovery. A constant state of discovery of new things, a stage that is taken for granted and in many respect wasted because of the lack of deep analytical skills. Childhood only become magical once we have got over it. It is our memory of it that makes it a special stage. The older I get the better I appreciate my childhood.
2. Adolescence: the age of the absolute. Things can only be right or wrong, black or white. There are good people and bad people. Relativity is a meaningless word. There are no shades of grey. I don’t miss my sweet sixteen. I was glad to get over that stage.
3. Youth: the defining age. Time to make the decisions that will shape the rest of our lives: the degree we will study, the university we’ll go to, the first job and for some even marriage and children. There was a time when these decisions were made and accepted they were for life, but that has changed now. Some of us postpone making those decisions for years, some try to turn back the clock by renouncing the path taking and moving to another one, accepting that we have to start from scratch again. This has stretched the age of youth from our 20s to our 40s for some people.
4. Middle Age: what used to be the age of content, when one’s lot was accepted and all that was left to do was to get on with things until the next age. Now this has been brought into question and given us the age of discontent for some. Drastic decisions are made: divorce, leaving jobs, changing careers, buying unpractical and expensive things.
5. Old age: the age of waiting. When the job is gone, sometimes taken from us, the aches set it. The end of the journey is in sight. It is up to us to choose what we make in that waiting room that takes us no where. I think we should try to do what we can within our possibilities: physical more than economic.

These are my definitions, I am well aware that I have stretched my 3rd stage far longer than most people. My excuse for this is that I am well are that I only have one life, I don’t believe in reincarnation or afterlife, and there are so many things I am interested in. I can’t bear not having a go to them, even if I know I’ll never master any of them.

A little bit more about me.

I also like music. I go to concerts whenever I can, mainly classical music, and my favourite concert hall is the Wigmore Hall. I also have a special fondness for the Royal Opera House and I am now beginning to enjoy the Albert Hall, after years avoiding its massive Victorian pretentiousness. The last concert I’ve was Pink Martini’s in the Albert Hall. I have no words to describe how much I enjoyed it: the music, the atmosphere and the company. It was the perfect evening. The last CD I listened to is Fauré’s Requiem. I strongly recommend his works.

I also play, very badly, I admit it: the violin. I have just finished practicing and the tips of my fingers are a bit sore. I have just added some Christmas Carols to my usual repertoire, just in readiness for the forthcoming parties.

I don’t want anyone reading this to think that I spend my days sitting with a book of playing music. I also like outdoors activities such as playing tennis, cycling and trekking. I play near where I live or in South London with a good friend of mine. Let’s see if how we manage now that the days are shorter and the weather less inviting! I like football, and my heart is between Arsenal, they have just scored 5 goals against Chelsea, and Barcelona.

I also like painting and drawing, but I have not had a chance to finish a painting I started about two months ago. I hope to have more time soon.

Next week, I'll start with some of my philosophical ramblings.

By way of introduction

I am trying to start my own blog, but being new to this I don’t know where to begin, so I will take a day at the time, and will start by making this a personal blog, but a positive one. I am going to write about the things I like and why, the projects I am working on and what progress I am making.


So this is a personal blog, but only about a part of me. Because the whole of me will be too boring. Specially the biographical bit, which I am afraid is pretty predictable: I was born - that’s obvious -, grew up enough to go to school, where I did well enough to go to University and come out of there with a couple of degrees. I have a full-time job because I have to make a living. It’s not a bad job, although it is not my dream job. I still don’t know what my ideal job is. I only know that I like doing things, ideally creative things: copy-writing, editing, designing publications, building up things from scratch.


I have many and varied interests which explain the eclectic nature of this blog. I’ll start with the ones I have cultivated for longer: reading.


I have a very vague memory of learning to read, and I don’t recall it being a painful process.
I do remember the first long book I read by myself: Peter Pan. I loved it. From there I moved on to the classical Fairy Tales of Andersen,the Grimm Brothers and Perrault. Followed by other children classics such as Jules Verne, my favourite used to be From Earth to the Moon but now I prefer The Experiment of Dr Ox, and I cannot say which one I will like next year, but there will always be a book by Jules Verne in my 'Desert Island Books.' I also liked Heidi - there is a whole generation of children in Spain for whom Heidi is a very special character. I also read comics, I still do, and I have a very eclectic taste: from Calvin and Hobbs to Alan Moore's classics.


I admired Heidi's sense of adventure and joy for anything around her, the same goes for Hansel and Gretel or any of Jules Verne's characters. I admire people who are self-reliant and adventurous.


As I child I don’t remember who bought the books, or ever asking for a book. They just appeared in my house for me to pick up. I don’t recollect seeing the books a tidy bookcase in a room, they were just on the sofa, on a table, on a chair, they could appear anywhere for me to pick up and start reading.


It would be fantastic to believe in a mysterious person leaving those books for me to find, but I have an older brother with very untidy habits. I think I owe to acknowledge that he was the one leaving the books all over the place. I am very grateful to him for that, and to my parents, for leaving me free to read anything that fell in my hands.


At the moment I am reading two books: David Abulafia’s The Great Sea, a history of the Mediterranean. I am thoroughly enjoying it. The book has over 700 pages and is hardback, which makes it a bit unpractical to take it in the bag and read it on my way to work. So I read it at home, and for my commuting I am reading a novel by Nicholas Shakespeare (I hope the pressure of the name is not too much for him. I have never read any of his previous novels so I don’t know what to think of this one yet. I will be able to say more when I have finished this. I never like praising or discarding a book until I have finished it. So keep an eye on this space.