Is it that time of year already? To start looking at what I’ve done this year and what I’m thinking of doing next year? So it is!
After a couple of years of restrictions and plagues and lockdowns, 2022 is the year when life started to go back to normal. I, personally, will be wearing medical masks on planes for the foreseeable future and fabric masks in public places more than most, but I’ve been on three planes this year (ok, six – got to get back from places as well as to them), I’ve been to events and I’ve done some fun stuff.
Number one on the list is drive two hours each way to spend an hour learning to capsize a kayak in a warm swimming pool. That felt like such a big thing back in March that I knew it would be making an appearance in this post. It’s a huge step on my journey to becoming a kayaking instructor, to capsize with a spraydeck on, turn upside down in the water and escape all by myself.
Number two – how did anything beat this?! – I saw a live erupting volcano for the first time! I walked 14km over the mountains in Iceland and there was a tiny baby newborn volcano spouting red-hot lava and it was incredible.
Number three, I officially launched my YouTube channel, in a quiet sort of way. I made a 38-minute video of my April trip to Iceland, which a friend described as “that’s not a vlog, that’s a Channel 4 documentary!” so on her request, when I vlogged my August trip to Iceland, I did it in six shorter vlogs, trying to keep them under ten minutes long (succeeded with five of the six!). Then I had my Sparkle & Ice At Home 2021 video ready the week of Sparkle & Ice 2022 and once I had seven videos in a row, I kind of felt I had to keep that up, except I didn’t have enough stuff sitting around – or enough time – to keep it up in December. But I filmed both my glamping trip and my adventures at the German Christmas market and those will hopefully (maybe?) go up every Tuesday in the New Year once I get started on them. I’m now both a blogger and a vlogger!
Number four, I had a blog post go viral to the point that I couldn’t read my statistics properly. It took weeks for that to disappear off the side of my daily view graph so that all the other days stopped being tiny smidges and I could actually start to compare them again. The Zac Efron post, far and away my most-viewed post in 2020 and 2021, has fallen to second place! On the other hand, Zac still sits in the top five posts every day even now – especially now, he’s picking up a little now that Down To Earth season two is out on Netflix – whereas the Z: The Deleted Letter post only gets viewed when someone posts it on Reddit once a year. We love consistency.
What else happened in 2022?
- I had a go at wild swimming
- I did Blogmas
- My Guiding life fell apart around me and I joined two new units in two new divisions
- I did the worst-timed Russian language course ever
- I bought a stand-up paddleboard
- I volunteered at Sparkle & Ice for the first time since 2018
- I finally framed Six Views In Six Media from the Laugavegur Trail
- I bought a GoPro that actually works
- I finished the first draft of my Iceland book!
What I’m planning for 2023
My plans for next year are always a big vague. I’m more a pantser than a planner, to use the NaNoWriMo terminology. I make it up as I go along so there’s rarely anything to announce at the end of December.
I know I’m going to Iceland in February, although the details are… well, non-existent. I have no flights or accommodation booked; all I know is I’m in Reykjavik on the 21st & 22nd. I’m trying to plan it around Rangers, really. The Brownies can do without me – indeed, they’ll have to because the earliest I can fly back is Thursday morning and even then, it’ll be a massive struggle to get home in time. Oh, I don’t know.
I’d like to get out to Croatia – I made some vague plans for this year that included putting together a seasonally-appropriate “holiday capsule wardrobe” (I bought a pale yellow hoodie to go with various blue and pink summer things I already own) so hopefully I’ll do that in the summer when I can fly from my local airport – admittedly with the dreaded Ryanair – rather than make the pilgrimage to Heathrow or Gatwick.
There’s nothing else quite so nearly-fixed in my brain. I’d like to go to Finland and try out my Finnish. I’d like to do my German rail adventure (this consists so far of: go to Germany; travel around by train; possibly in the north? Although since I went to Cologne and discovered the truth about German train fares, this one might slide off the list). I’d like to go back to Svalbard next winter. If none of those happen, my heart won’t break. They’ll still be there when I get round to it. There are plenty of people who’ve realised these things can be taken away at a moment’s notice and are making the most of them while they can. Me, I’ve realised that while I don’t want to never travel again, I didn’t miss it as much as people might have expected me to. It’ll come round again one day. Anyway, yes, I’d like to do those things if time and money allow.
I’m definitely going to do some more UK camping adventure weekends although again, nothing decided or booked yet. I’ll get on that in a week or two; these days some campsites get booked up a long way in advance. I could do with going for a walk or two on Dartmoor (let’s be realistic, keep it at “a” walk) for my walking qualification logbook. In fact, I’m going to write a post on the subject in January and tag the relevant posts.
The other thing I’m going to do is keep 2023 a little more chill. November and December have been manic so I don’t want to take on anything big and time-consuming in 2023. No more Blogmas. I want time to breathe, time to do the fun stuff and time to measure my free time in something bigger than minutes, which is kind of what I’ve been doing for the last two months
I do want to have a go at aerial hoop and aerial silks. I want to go fossil-hunting. I want to go outside and slither uncertainly on my roller skates. I want to have a go at tennis. I want to stand in the garden and spin poi until my arms hurt. I want to edit up my Iceland book until it’s something fit for human consumption and start the next book but I’m going to let that come in its own sweet time, not least because forcing it just doesn’t work. I want to go out on my paddleboard whenever the weather is nice. I want to kayak and canoe more than I did in 2022.
But as for plans – yeah, I’m taking it as it comes. Where the blog is concerned, I’ve got a new series coming next year plus I want to make Travel Library more regular – I want to read more anyway so I’m going to try to include some travel-related books. More Iceland Itineraries. Tidy up my menus and categories again. Pick up the lifestyle blog – I was just getting into that when autumn/winter hit hard and I haven’t had the time or energy to even think about it. But January is a nice new start. I’m going to have more time in 2023, so Happy New Year, see you on Monday!