Happy 2022!!!

This made me chuckle a bit

Why is it so bloody dark!?! Ahem. Godzilla blotting out the light perhaps. In swapping my usual Australian Christmas by the pool for a few months back in Wales, I’m rediscovering Britain. They’re a fun people! I like the quirkiness of electing a randy chimp to run the country, it’s so zany! It’s like a war against cogent sentences.

But I am enjoying myself, spending time with family, which considering the world at large, am pretty pleased with (as they bicker in the background, and I reach for my headphones like I’m fifteen again). Since this is the first Christmas I’ve spent in the UK in roughly fifteen years, I’ve tried approaching the place with a fresh perspective. Here are a few notes:

• We have to address this . . .  this lack of sun thing. Did someone not pay a bill? I’ve seen it briefly, twice, in the entirety of December, otherwise I’ve been ensconced in this perpetual sheath of pigeon grey cloud and drizzle. On good days, there is less drizzle. After a month where I’ve worked a few night shifts, it feels like colleagues are taking the piss when they ask when sunrise is. I cannot tell you . . . June?
• Every good Brit brushes their buttery teeth once a month whether they need it or not; this is just good hygiene. Why they need to even bother when water is overpacked with calcium, I have no idea. The mineral lays waste to everything, clogging up taps and showers, coalescing in dirty great glumps in kettles. I mean, it ruins stainless steel. That’s not nothing. Perhaps a mineral this durable should be used for English cricket bats?
• Although roads in Wales are a 95% hedgerow, seeing vehicles scudding frighteningly close on narrow roads does elicit a high-pitched squeal or five. It’s a daily dance with the (damp) devil. I spent the majority of my time in the capital clutching pearls as double-decker buses barrelled along, missing cars by this much when careering through the streets of London
• London . . . empty your bins! That’s how plagues start, for the love of Kerrrrist!
• Footballs on. That’s nice.
• Fireplaces at home and in pubs are excellent, well done!
  

I shall continue to take notes of this peculiar species whist I’m here, although I’ll have to lift my head from books for that. Am just clocking over sixty books for the year, but stuck on Wiser for a while, exploring the scientific roots of wisdom, compassion, and what makes us good. A lovely book to take into 2022, I feel. I also got into some classics like Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, Theresa Raquin, and childhood favourites like Anne of Green Gables and Charlotte’s Web, all pretty wonderful. Although the last few months have been a blur, there has been plenty of good bits. I was pleased to get out on the motorcycle a little before I finally sold it, and my fitness and weight have improved too. I had minor surgery which I’d been putting off, and although I still haven’t finished my uncle’s audiobook (two chapters to go), and I haven’t progressed in writing my third book (on leadership) whatsoever in the last few months, I am very happy and grateful with my lot. I am enjoying being home, spending time with friends and family. You never know how much you miss people until you can’t see them. Oddly here the conversation is less ‘oh my, hope I don’t catch COVID’ and more ‘well, when I first caught it . . .’ A different world to what we’ve been used to in Australia where Western Australia, a state the size of UK, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Belarus and Italy put together, enters a four-day lockdown because of three cases. Yup, three. It's not all sunshine and cricket :-)

As ever, thanks for your love, friendship and support in 2021, it’s been entirely my pleasure. I hope to see many of you in 2022, all my love, Richard xx

Wales. A Mist-ery. Nice to pick up the camera again