The book of resolutions

Happy New Year!

I made a good start to 2018 and my resolutions by deleting the Facebook app off all my devices and going for a swim, both of which activities were very refreshing in their own way. 

There were two principle reasons for deleting Facebook, an action that I've been pondering for a while. Firstly, there's the fact that it is, as someone wrote in the Guardian recently, more of surveillance software than social media. And the second is that it's a bloody time sink!

And one of the things I intend to do with all this new time is read more. I love reading so why do I spend so little time doing it? My original plan was to select fifty-two books from my stacks of unread books and go at them one a week. And then I remembered that I'd signed up to the Big Green Bookshop's bespoke book club. Ho hum.

So now it was forty books to choose, and you can see the final selection in today's photo. All of the other books went into one of two piles: the "I am never actually going to read this" pile, which will go to one of the local charity shops, and another for books that I still intend to read. Just not this year.

And in the evening, the Minx and I went into town to meet up with Bob, Neil, Ally, and Paul, who'd been to see Liverpool play in Burnley and somehow made a night in Kirkby Lonsdale part of that itinerary. My plan had been to take them around a selection of the ten pubs that we have but I was slightly stunned to find the town looking like something out of the Wild West; most of the pubs had locked their doors and the street was full of people who'd clearly been drinking all day. 

The Minx reminded me that it had been similar a couple of years ago when we ventured down on New Year's Day. There seems to a tradition brewing! However, we were able to grab drinks in the Royal as Bob was staying there, a fantastic curry in Spice Essence, and then get a table at Number Nine, which had decided to brave out the evening. 

But, in fact, the all day drinkers had retired by then, so we were able to enjoy the rest of the evening there. I have to say, the place is growing on me. 

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Reading: 'In praise of older women' by Stephen Vizinczey (which was actually a Christmas present and is not in the picture above!).