I wasn’t planning on making any New Year resolutions as such, but then had second thoughts and decided to put a few down anyway. So here, in no particular order, are the things that are on my list for 2010:

1. Lose weight. That’s a bit of a hardy perennial, really, and to be honest it’s not really a biggie. I’m not hugely excessive in the chubbiness department – I’m still at the stage where I can call it “cuddly” if I need to – so I don’t have any major targets here. But I am a bit above the ideal weight for my height, and, given that growing taller isn’t really an option, I could do with knocking off a few pounds. The main aim is to go from a situation where my clothes – especially my trousers – are just a tad on the tight side to one where they’re comfortably loose. If I can manage that, I’ll be happy.
2. Get debt free. By the end of 2010, I want to have no debts other than the mortgage. I’m actually not all that far away from that anyway, so it ought to be relatively easy to achieve.
3. Write more stuff on my blog. This was actually last year’s resolution; I didn’t achieve the target that time but that’s not going to stop me from trying again.
4. Get out more. When I first moved to Stoke, I spent nearly every weekend out and about in the surrounding countryside, getting to know the area and just enjoying the scenery. Since moving to Evesham, though, I’ve done very little local exploring – most weekends are spent either in the house or shopping. That’s not to say I’ve done nothing – I have done a fair amount of local investigation – but not to the extent that I have done in the past. Partly, of course, that’s because I now have a family living with me, which makes things a bit more complicated, and partly also because the Vale of Evesham (and surrounding areas such as the Cotswolds) aren’t, frankly, anything like as interesting or visually spectacular as the Peak District and Snowdonia, the two places I spent most of my weekends after first moving to Stoke. I think I need to go a bit further afield – I haven’t been to the Malverns yet, and the Brecon Beacons are also in reach, so those are my immediate targets.
5. Make music. Since leaving Stoke, and the Hope band, I’ve barely played a note. I need to get the keyboards set up and the guitar restrung and start playing again.
6. Buy my wife flowers more often.
7. Get involved in national politics. 2010 will be an election year; I want my voice to be one of those which helps shape our future. This is probably the most vague and amorphous resolution, since I don’t really have any detailed plan for achieving it. But it’s also the one I feel most passionately about, so I’m determined to find a way.
8. Get the cat done. Kittens may be cute, fluffy and adorable, but they eat, wee and poo and it’s a pain in the neck trying to rehouse them.
9. Tidy up the house, and keep it tidy. A resolution which I may well achieve by the simple means of hiring a cleaner.
10. Travel. Other than the brief trip to Brussels last May, I haven’t been out of the country since our honeymoon in Ireland. And the trip to Brussels reminded me of how much I enjoy going to (relatively) far off places. So a big target for this year is to take a family holiday outside the UK, for the first time. That’s going to be interesting, to say the least – I’m not sure I really fancy flying with a three year old and a baby (which will have arrived on the scene before we’re likely to go anywhere), so our destination is probably going to have to be somewhere accessible by ferry or the tunnel. Ireland again is an obvious choice, but I rather fancy visiting Amsterdam – I haven’t been there for many years, and it would be nice to go back. France or Spain would be options too – does anyone have a gîte or a villa we could borrow?