So, following on from how (badly) I’ve done in 2009/10, what’re the plans for 2010/11 ?

Honestly, I don’t really know.  I guess the main points can be brought down to :

• Write more
• Take more photos
• Do more websites
• Get more business
• Pay stuff off
• Get off the antidepressants

Other than that, more of my activity will be down to altering life, seeing friends, travelling, doing other odds and sods along the way.

I don’t know what the run-up to 40 will bring, but right now the thing that I do want to do is not stress about it over the next year.

We’ll see.

This time last year, this was the list of what I wanted to do in 2009/10…

1. Mortgage renewal
2. Build up own business
3. Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
4. Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead.
5. Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
6. Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
7. Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
8. Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
9. Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.

So, how did I do?

1. Yeah, didn’t do the renewal.
2. Still working on that, allbeit slowly
3. I did launch a couple of new sites over the year, but nowhere near as many as I wanted to. Mind you, I’ve also culled out a number of the ones that aren’t going to work out, too.
4. Certainly written more, along with submitting a couple of small pieces to competitions and the like.
5. Photography hasn’t been so successful. I haven’t had the inspiration or motivation as yet – there’s been a number of things I have done, but not what I was planning to do.
6. Lost weight – I’m down a stone on where I was, with the intention of losing more.
7. I didn’t get to the gym at all
8. I didn’t really do much in the way of business planning, although equally I’ve had enough to keep me going over the year.
9. I got in touch with friends, saw a few, and then went back to being crap.

All told, not a great year for achievement. Stuff’s been done – just not as much as I wanted to, and/or not in the sections I planned it to be.  All told, it’s a bit of a worry, with the culmination in a year’s time of that five year plan – but then, there’s been lots of change in that five years, if I look back to where I was when I started it. So I can live with that – there’s been progress, work and change, they just hasn’t taken me along the path/road I expected them to.

For once, I’ve got a situation where my memory is failing me. I wasn’t even aware of it ’til today, but now it’s driving me mad.

On Radio One this morning, Chris Moyles mentioned having been in Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent. And I know I went for an interview there many moons ago. It’s just that I can’t remember the name of the place-  which is odd, because I normally can remember these stupid useless details.

I know it was some kind of jazz bar/restaurant, but that’s it. I can’t remember much about it – something about the location, but not much.

It’s really bugging me. What’s worse is that I know it shouldn’t annoy me – it was something for half a day, back in what must’ve been 1993/94. I shouldn’t really even recall that I’d been there, so little does it matter.

But up there in my head, for whatever reason, it does matter. I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.

Over the week away, I grew a goatee beard. I had one years ago and it kind of suited me, but ended up making me look rather Satanic – it grew into a total point, and was cool but A Bad Thing. Well, it seemed to scare other people, anyway. I liked it.

Time goes by though, and this time the goatee was at least one-third grey, which I hated. I don’t mind having grey hair – my mum was totally grey by the time she was the age I am now, so I always knew it’d happen, and it doesn’t bother me. But I hate grey eyebrow hairs, and felt the same about the grey bits in the goatee.

So it’s not going to stay this time. In fact it’s gone already. I suspect it won’t be back, because I totally refuse to go with the “Just for Men” look.