these are not resolutions:

moisturise your body, fi
-I don't have the softest skin. My body type renders me bumpy and stretched, utterly unlike every lovely lady on the first few pages of any magazine, or in the lovely sun flared photos on 'summer' or 'shred' blogs, which is fine, I've learnt to embrace this stuff, and not to berate myself for not meeting standards of beauty that I didn't set... But I could be softer, or smoother, I'm never sure which word I'm after of those two. So I plan on buttering myself up, after showers and before bed, like a lovely pork shoulder, yum.

speak to your family more, fi
-We had a tough christmas and New Year. Shortly before Christmas, after years of them struggling with their conditions (dementia, bi-polar, rheumatoid arthritis, pride), and my mum struggling to keep them above water; both my grandparents went into a local residential home. Then, on the 6th of January, my nanny became very suddenly poorly with pneumonia, and died less than 24 hours after being admitted into hospital. I love my nan a lot, she was stubborn and quite blunt, but fiercely loyal, generous and we could natter endlessly. Losing her has been awful. And as so often happens with death, it brought the rest of us together. I have a small family, my dad is an only child, and my mum only has one brother. So time spent with my cousins and brothers is special. I miss my nan already.


cook soup, fi
-It's easy to work out why, isn't it? Soup is cheap, warming, easy, flavoursome, packed with goodness and you can make loads at once.

do more stuff to your face, fi
-Since moving to London, I've had spots. As anyone who lives here knows, London air is dirty: you only have to blow your nose after a tube-heavy weekend to see the black evidence in your tissue. Lucky as a teenager, I was spot-free, so this sudden peppering of a few spots has caught me unarmed, I honestly don't know how to care for my skin. Perhaps the Devon coastal air is magical, but I've never had a face care routine. I've always just sort of shampooed my face while i did my hair in the shower? I know that's bad. I've not moisturised either. 'You definitely brought this upon yourself, girl'-- Oh I know.... I've always just let my face and body sort itself, it's not like w're born with anti-ageing night cream and a razor in our hands is it? Anyway, I've bought some face masks, an exfoliator, and a vitamin e moisturiser from Body Shop in their 40% off sale. Who knows if it'll help? I can but try, eh?

send more post, fi
-Send to family, send to friends. I love getting post, but these days it's mainly my impulse bids on ebay that deliver any post through my letter box. My mum is a great letter writer, keeping in touch with many of her friends that way, and she's taught me to do the same with cards, send thank yous, and happy birthdays... but as the internet replaces a lot of things, I think letter writing has gotten a bit lost. I don't resolve to write letters, but maybe write a bit more inside the cards and on the post cards that I will send this year.

go see movies, fi
-I love the pictures, it's one of my favourite things to do, but I've gone less in the last couple of years. So... I'm thinking... a film a month? I'm excited for Spike Jonze's 'Her', with the lovely Joaquin Phoenix, 'August: Osage County',  and Steve McQueens's 'Twelve Years and Slave' (going to see this with my 'American Fictions' class). Most of all, I am excited for the new Wes Anderson 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', which you can just tell is a Wes Anderson film from the name and poster alone, I think.











shoot more film, fi
I've had a ridiculously unlucky time with my film camera lately- last year I developed fourteen rolls of film, three of which turned out to be blank, which meant bye bye to my visit to the eden project with Rhiannon, and cheerio to my day on Dartmoor with Rachel . I think the film tore as I wound it on early on in the roll-  two out of the three blank rolls had maybe one or two photos on, but nothing on the rest of the roll. This is a mixture of me not loading it as carefully as I could- with the old and often expired film I use (which I love- so no preaching). And then, the shutter stuck on my trusty OM10 just before Christmas. I have since bought a replacement (old camera bodies are cheap enough on ebay, it's the lenses that cost a few bob), and this fucker just developed only half a roll- which was bizaar- as it was really sporadic on the negatives... like 1- 4 were fine, then 5-20 were blank, then the rest of the roll came as shadows and light. I'll get another one from a more reputable seller, perhaps. ANYWAY- this year I'd like to shoot more film. To quantify it, I'm thinking 2 rolls of film a month, starting February.


These aren't resolutions, they're not going to change my life considerably... but I want to do them... for reasons.