It’s traditional to do a post about next year’s plans, even if next year’s plans are a bit vague. But let’s have a look at what I might do in 2020.
Some definites:
- I’m taking my Rangers to winter survival camp. I’m proud of how much they enjoyed being frozen last year.
- Iceland in May. I’m going to finally visit the (relatively) new Krauma spa at Deildartunguhver, I’m spending the day at the Blue Lagoon on the way back to the airport and I plan to spend at least two evenings at Sundhöllin.
- Iceland again at the end of June for another crack at the Laugavegur trail, this time for all four days of it. May I’ve booked. June I’ll do in the New Year.
- I’m going to see Taylor Swift in Hyde Park and Queen at the o2.
- I’m going to do 500km of swimming, walking & maybe even a little running.
- I’m going to finish both my Russia 2019 and Russia 2002 scrapbooks. The 2002 one I started last year and haven’t actually touched this year. It’s time to sort that out.
And some indefinites…
I think I want to go somewhere cold in January or February. Iceland. North Norway. It feels like a long time since this polar bear has seen proper snow. Actually, there’s another definite. I’m having a weekend in London in which I’ll swim in the Olympic pool again.
I don’t have any big adventures lined up right now. Azerbaijan is on my list but after Russia in 2019, I’d like something a bit more comfy and familiar for a while. Scandinavia, the Baltics (back to Riga and/or Tallinn!), more Poland. The likes of Croatia and Slovakia, maybe, where new countries and new adventures are concerned.
What I definitely want to do is a monthly UK mini-adventure. I really like the idea of these microgaps I’m seeing lately but it’s hard to see them as anything other than a rebranding of “a weekend away in the UK” which is why I spent two whole days in September failing to come up with my own exciting name for them. A weekend away with a purpose, like an adventure, a skill-learning opportunity or an educational field trip. I want to go to Cambridge and the Channel Islands. Tree-camping on Brownsea Island. A proper look at Bath. Throw me any other suggestions for places to go.
I want to pick up Project #BeforeItBurnsDown. I’ve made a colour-coded map of cathedrals and I’d like to cross off as many of them as possible, starting with the Norman and the local. Gibraltar will be the last one. I’ve done five so far. I’m undecided whether I’ll do a #BeforeItBurnsDown dedicated blog post for each of them. On the whole, I think it would be better to do something that includes it rather than focuses on it like my pilgrimage to Canterbury in September.
Work-wise, I have a few things I want to do.
One, the Iceland book. Up until mid-December, it was going to be the Russia book and I think I do want to write that one day. But at the moment I don’t and I do want an Iceland book in my personal bibliography.
Two, I want to write an entire album about Russia. Yeah, songs. And when I say “album”, I mean EP. Six to ten songs. Whether I record this album is another matter. I don’t have the instrumental skill and I know nothing about recording music. It may get no further than six sets of lyrics that I sing in the car while feeling pretty proud of myself. Summertime in Red Square is half done – you don’t and probably won’t ever get to hear it. I already know one of the others is called Midnight in Ekaterinburg. Trying not to go down that naming pattern for the other four or five. Falling Leaves or variant thereupon for Perm.
Three, I feel like there’s a possibility my job won’t exist in a few years. I’d like to start feeling like this could be my job within five years so in 2020 I want to get my first paid published piece. One will do for now. Two would be nice but let’s start small.
Four, I’m trying to start making travel vlogs. I’ve been saying this for years but now I have a YouTube channel specifically for it. My original one is now mostly for when I want to put a twenty second clip of something here in my blog. Potential followers don’t want to see half a dozen of those between vlogs. My day on the Isle of Wight one already exists and I tried to film some stuff in Gdansk but it won’t go together into one video so I don’t know how well number four is going to go.
Five – and this is a maybe – I’m going to have another go at the lifestyle blog. Books, nails, comedy, real life, that sort of thing. I’ve tried it before but because I don’t have a serious schedule I always drop it very quickly. Yes, that means four blog posts a week across the two blogs. Guess which one I’ll abandon if it turns out to be too much.
Six, I’m going to do Blogmas. Yes, November 2019 is a perfectly reasonable time to start planning for a post a day in December 2020.
Considering I started out thinking there was very little definite in 2020, that’s actually quite a lot. I already feel like doing all that is going to be stressful and we’ll see what actually happens but this is my vision for 2020 right now.