New Year, New Leaf

It is that time of year when you sit back and take a good hard look at how you have done over the last year, well some things have gone OK and some not so much so.   It was good to have a holiday (I missed out in 2011) and the business is still going, on the other hand I have not been playing as much as I would have liked and I am tired too much of the time.   So it's now time to look ahead at what I want to achieve over the coming year.   I am going to limit myself to six things and I am going to try to make them SMART that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

1 To achieve solvency ~ I think I may have mentioned before that money is an issue, like so many other people I ran up credit card and other debt that I suddenly found I could no longer service. I have had to make "arrangements" with my creditors and have, with difficulty being sticking to these arrangements. Towards the end of 2013 I anticipate a small windfall, nothing substantial, but it should be enough to settle everything except the mortgage, that would be a very nice feeling!

2 To take off one day each month, solely for my own edification. I have tried to do this a few times but have always ending up missing a few, these are my days to go to an art exhibition visit a garden or house, time to myself to go out and do something that will inspire and enlighten me. I have already set this in motion I have booked for a couple of exhibitions at the Royal Academy.

3 To spend quality time with my wife, to restore our relationship and to get better at communicating. I think we have started this and things have improved over the last month or so, but I am still very aware that I could "blow it" big time with one false move. When our daughter was born I bought my wife a gold chain, a couple of years ago it broke, as part of her Christmas present I had it repaired, this was meant to be symbolic of my determination to repair our relationship, I hope this was noticed.

4   I mentioned I am tired a lot of the time, too often wake up on the same day that I go to bed, I will aim to go to bed on the same day as I wake up more often.

5   Last year (2012) I managed to visit Wells Cathedral, something I have longed to do for ages, this coming year I want to visit Ely and Lincoln Cathedrals, I long to visit Durham as well (or instead) but I think Ely and Lincoln could be achieved on a single trip over two or three days.   I know that this may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I do enjoy visiting Cathedrals, especially the old ones.

Ely Cathedral

6 To play more music, by this I mean both recorded music to listen to and as an instrumentalist. I need to do more (or indeed any) practise, especially on the tuba, I have noticed that I am not as good a player as was even a couple of years ago. I think that a lot of this is down to my conducting, this takes a lot of the time that I was previously devoting to playing, and I have not made up for it any other time. To a certain extent it is just keeping the muscles in trim, but I definitely need to play the bass guitar more so that I can get to the level where I am playing the music, rather than the instrument! It also struck me the other day that I rarely get to listen to music, the television tends to dominate in our household, but I am determined that I should listen to more of the music I know I love, and some that I don't know, I think this is one of the ways that we grow as musicians, exposure to new music as well as looking deeper into what we already know and love. It could be as simple as retuning the radio to Radio 3 and Classic fm occasionally rather than leave it stuck on Radio 4.

Maybe these are not all very SMART, but they are at least all timed. I'm not always good at making changes, but it is always worth trying to change the things you are not happy with.