Tag: new years resolutions

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Buying crap

In the lead up to the most relaxed Christmas Rob and I have had in years, a simple question began to reoccur everywhere we meant. Do we need this? And often the answer was, you guessed it, no.

Where does the instinct come from to consume as much as possible over Christmas? The chocolates, the desserts, and a new one for me, candles with built in LED lights that come on when you light them. Seriously, don’t candles already light up enough? When the urge to buy takes over, I become a MONSTER.

Wilbur, caught attacking the christmas decorations at every opportunity.

I started thinking about my upcoming new year’s resolution quite early this year. I wanted to spend less, and put more into our savings. After a culmination of what I’m going to call multiple blackout ‘spending events’ – I realised how out of control I’d become. My impulse control for buying crap had always been low. But in 2024, it was non-existent.

My latest obsession – maybe even hyper fixation – was on cordless vacuums. Allow my own behaviour to a cautionary tale. My last vacuum was a fabulous little rechargeable thing. It was tiny, didn’t take long to replenish the battery, and did a pretty good job of keeping the tiny flat we used to rent relatively clean. However, when it came the end of its life, far too quickly in my opinion (after about 3 years of use), I decided to opt for a slightly more expensive corded alternative. My Shark vacuum has not only saved me money in the long-run as it doesn’t require the little bags my rechargeable one did, but it also does a much better job of cleaning. My rugs and carpet look gorgeous after a 15-minute whip round. And better yet, I’m not creating more e-waste as the lithium-ion battery begins a quick descent into uselessness.

But there I was, convinced that now we have two cats, and the need to clean more regularly than before, what I desperately wanted was something that I could whip out to do the little daily touch ups my home needed to stay fresh. And keep the cat hair at a manageable level. Despite the fact, I already have a much better vacuum cleaner – that albeit a bit heavier – works wonderfully well.

Penelope (left) and Wilbur (right)

In years gone by, I have also been a sucker for sustainable gimmicks. The Eco Egg laundry, uh, thing? Yep, I was an early adopter. And you know where it got me? Eventually my clothes began to take on a faint smell of damp. Even though everything was properly washed and aired. Bar cleansers were another obsession of mine, along with solid shampoos and conditioners. Though I must admit these were far more successful. As they are sensible alternatives to hygiene products that come in bulky or complex plastic containers.

I have to tell you though, one of my all-time favourite shampoo and conditioner bars are by the brand Ethique. And when they’re on sale in Holland & Barrett, I’m like a dog in heat. They are lovely, work well, and I adore their subtle scents. Side note – do Holland & Barrett still do the penny sale? (Oh dear, here I go again…)

But as I go into 2025, my goal is to simply use things up before buying more. Stop the accumulating, the hoarding of things ‘just in case’. And swap products out, where I can, for more environmentally conscious alternatives. Ones that work and aren’t just useless crap or convincing greenwashing.

One way of doing this is to create a ‘want’ list in my journal of the things I’d like to try. If I still think it’s a good idea in a month’s time, after plenty of research, then I’ll buy it. If not, well, it wasn’t meant to be.

For my birthday, Rob bought me an Aarke carbonator. A fancy looking alternative to the Sodastream he found on QVC of all places. I am in love – and no longer buying sparkly water or fizzy pop.

Me sipping my guilty pleasure – Diet Coke.

But what about the stuff that isn’t as easy to swap out – like household cleaning sprays, laundry detergent, toilet roll, fragrances, candles, moisturisers. Sure, there are loads of alternatives, but I’m not sure there’s a clear consensus on whether they’re actually any good, or better for the planet. Well, allow me to be your lab rat. That’s also what I’m going to be trying this year. I’m on the hunt for environmentally friendly, sustainable alternatives to the plastic crap I’ve been buying at the speed of light. And hopefully, I’ll be saving a bit of money along the way. I’ve recently been to my local refill store ‘Siop Sero’ in Roath, Cardiff. And will be sharing how I got along shortly.

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New for 2024, when skincare becomes medical, how to furnish a home…

Release the wiggle

I used to be firmly in the camp that said, with absolute certainty, that new year’s resolutions are destined to fail, and rather snootily, destined to be made by people with zero will-power. But I write to you with my sincerest apologies. For it seems I might have been both wrong and a bit miserable.

Over the last few years, I’ve made some relatively big changes. All within the general theme of taking better care of myself. For me, most of 2020 was an absolute write off. While many people used the lockdowns to try to form new relationships with their bodies by exercising, learning new skills, and maximising all the time spent at home, I simply lost my mind.

In truth, I’d probably been losing my mind – descending into quite a nasty period of depression – for a few years. Sorry, hang in there, this isn’t all doom and gloom. But as we emerged into the brave new world of restaurants with tables 2 meters apart and washing our hands (did we wash our hands prior to 2020?), I decided it was about time I lightened up. And the first step in finding a better outlook on life? Getting some fucking exercise!

For me, it was all about walking. By the end of 2020, once I’d gotten over the fear of actually leaving the flat, and we were allowed to travel freely again, I worked my way up from a quick walk around the block, to regular 12, even 15-mile walks. But good things can’t last forever… mostly because the government’s furlough scheme was coming to an end and I needed to find a new job. And I couldn’t face the prospect of going back to a job with the very unsociable hours that had contributed to my unhappiness. So, by April 2021, when I eventually found my dream job (working from home), my routine was strong. Wake up early, start work around 7am, and finish at 3pm. Go for a walk, grab a coffee, enjoy the fresh air before it gets dark.

When January 2022 came around, I knew I was ready for more. I’d been dabbling with the gym for a few months at this point, so while it wasn’t necessarily brand new to me, I hadn’t actually made it a real part of my daily routine. I made the daring decision (drunk on all those exercise endorphins) to commit to going to the gym at least 3-times a week. I prepared myself to hate it, but to turn up anyway.

Well, I didn’t hate it. And surprise, surprise, getting 45 minutes to an hour of regular exercise every day does wonders for your mood. Who’d have thought that everybody was right about this? My own Mother was so smug, I couldn’t look at her.

For the last 2 years, exercise has become such an essential part of my daily life. It’s been the key to changing my entire outlook on everything. There is a remarkably simple truth to seeing how I feel about something after I’ve gotten some exercise. Nothing seems quite as daunting, or quite as impossible, once you’ve sweat a bit on the elliptical.  Setting that goal for myself at the beginning of 2022, to go and do something that brings so much joy (I am addicted to the feel-good chemicals buzzing uncontrollably in my brain), has brought pleasure back into every aspect of my life. So, if you’re thinking about setting a new year’s resolution (don’t worry, it’s not too late), or if you’ve already set one, let me be the first to wish you luck on your journey. And congratulate you for making the fabulous decision to take care of yourself.

Skincare and skinCARE

Listen, I bang on about the virtues of SPF to anyone who will listen. And it all harks back to my first time using The Body Shop’s Seaweed Cleanser and Seaweed Daily Moisturiser with SPF in uni. That feeling of every day luxury, in taking care of yourself, and basking in that shiny post-cream glow (steady on!) – it makes me so happy to be alive!

As a child, I was afflicted with the most heinous dry skin. So riddled with eczema was I, that I was, on more than one occasion, sent home from school due to the pain caused by my cracked and bleeding skin. Luckily for me, steroid creams got it under control, and by some greater miracle, I seemed to grow out of it. Or so I thought, until last week.

As a lifelong lover of the Winter months, I have something really quite embarrassing to admit. I now hate the cold, and I’m so sorry for getting this all so wrong. Summer is actually quite lovely. The miserable short days of winter are a disgrace. Over the course of about 3 weeks, a small patch of dry skin near my eye, led to patches of dry skin all over my face, and eventually my eyes being so swollen it looked like I was in the throes of an allergic reaction.

A quick video call with my GP and there I was, face-to-face with the old frenemy I hadn’t heard from in nearly 20 years. Eczema. At least that’s what the lovely doctor on the other end of the facetime call suspected. As it was on my face, he recommended I avoid cleansing for a week, and moisturise 3 times a day, applying a very mild (available over the counter) topical steroid. He also added I should take an antihistamine to help with the itching.

3 days later, not a trace of the dry, scaly, tell-tale signs of eczema were left. Praise be. But this also meant not being able to use my prescription retinoid (prescription for pure vanity, I might add). But all of my obsessive reading, watching, listening, and shopping had meant I was very well-stocked for a situation involving skin sensitivity. Real thanks to Aveeno for making some of the best, most gentle products on earth. AND for FINALLY releasing a daily moisturiser with SPF! AND IT’S BLOODY TINTED!

I’m the tacky one?

I want to leave you with a cautionary tale.

I hyper-fixate on many things: skincare, food, books, coffee shops, public transport. Having interests and hobbies is fantastic for a person’s overall sense of wellbeing, connectedness to community, and creativity. But what I’ve never had even the slightest interest in, is home décor.

I’ve always liked to think of myself as an enjoyer of the finer things in life. Scented candles, framed photographs, pretty mugs, you get the picture. A trip to Homesense lights a fire in me that is so frightening, it rivals the city of London on the 2nd of September 1666. But what I’d never developed was an aesthetic more complex than a colour palette of mustard and teal. If it’s mustard or teal, it’s fine by me. Stick it in the basket and I’ll find room for it once I get home.

What you can’t do when you’ve just bought your first home and need to furnish it, is just stick it in the basket and find room for it when you’re home. No matter how hard I tried. Rob, my parents, friends, all seemed united in informing me the one piece of information I’d always missed: that I am completely, and utterly, tasteless.

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New Year’s Ease

The last time round, I was thinking a lot about the small pleasures of life. The sense of accomplishment we’re all capable of feeling when we feel able to find gratitude in the domestic. I wrote about what felt like the closure of a tumultuous time and the comfort I found in learning to bake. You may not know this but baking as a vegan is like engaging in a dangerous scientific experiment with a blindfold on. On Christmas Eve 2022, in my frenzied search for a dessert down the aisles of Tesco, I discovered my saviour: a bottle of egg substitute.

I’ve tried every variation of this type of product, some sort of okay for baking (though often producing a strange texture, far too dense for most sponge recipes) and some that scramble brilliantly, made from chickpea flour and, I assume, ground up pieces of pure solid gold. One box cost me upwards of £6. I don’t know any omnivore eating eggs for £1 a pop.

But this strange yellow bottle did the unthinkable. Already a liquid, it somehow managed to measure as the perfect baking substitute while holding it’s own in a hot frying pan. It’s not supposed to be this easy is it? The wildest part of this whole experience is that it isn’t even made from obscure ingredients like fermented mung beans, but instead: the humble pea.

I followed a simple lemon sponge recipe, swapping out the eggs for this gloopy genius (think egg with fresh cream whipped in) and whisked up some vegan cream cheese with the dregs of icing sugar left in my parents cupboard. The result: a fluffy, moist, lemon sponge cake with a delicious rich cream cheese filling. With it, an entire year of dedicated trial and error, chemical reactions, and endless baking, evaporated like it never even happened. Did it all feel like a waste of time?

Truthfully? I felt an unspeakable relief. No more carefully thickening soya milk with vinegar. Instead, decrease the oven temperature by 10 degrees Celsius and increase the baking time by 15 minutes.

So much of our resistance to change comes from our inclination to preserve our struggle as something worth while. Something necessary that we had to go through in order to arrive at an end point where we have something up on everyone else still slogging through it. We see it in resistance to our welfare system – why should it be easy for them when it was so difficult for me? We see it in generational attitudes to changing technology – why would I need a mobile phone when my landline works perfectly well? And we see it in our relationships too – why would I throw this thing away when I’ve already worked so damn hard to keep it alive?

But as I move into this new year, I’m not so focused on resolutions as I am on giving my head a wobble. Why work so hard when things can be easy? Maybe this year we can allow ourselves the gift of taking the easy road, instead of endless manoeuvring.

That’s not to say everything should be easy, or that the difficult to reach goals aren’t worth fighting for. Or that we can avoid hardship fullstop. But maybe, this year, we can give ourself the gift of not overly moralising when an easy option presents itself. Instead, why not allow ourselves to do simply whatever needs to be done, to give ourselves the space we deserve to finally put our feet up.

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Downsizing

It’s been as good as a Sunday can get. We went to the shops, stocked up on spices (the only cupboard at my parents that can lack a bit of oumph). Rob let me pick everything I wanted for my birthday from Holland & Barrett. Yes, I know it’s strange to want all my gifts from there, but I just love the place. And I’ve just had the best roast dinner of my life. Home-cooked by my lovely Mum.

Carrots, brussel sprouts and vegan pigs in blankets, seasoned and on a roasting tray.

It’s the roast, by the way, that’s got me thinking. Thinking about roasts. And I’ve had a huge epiphany. Again, about roasts.

When you’re a vegan or a vegetarian, there’s a tendency, in my experience, to make up for an often underwhelming centre piece with as many side dishes as possible. For me, that’s filling the oven to the brim with as many different types of vegetable as possible, and roasting them until they’re golden and caramelised and perfect in every way. Except the thing about my roasts is, there’s always something that isn’t quite right. And now I know why.

Like many people, I have a tendency to put too much on my plate. Metaphorically and literally. So, when it comes to making a roast dinner, I’m always out of my element. I worry about timing everything perfectly. Don’t you know, everything needs to be ready at the same time? Even if I haven’t got the counter space to take everything out of the oven together.

Tenderstem brocoli in a frying pan with olive oil, garlic, chilli flakes and salt.

Stuffing is also a bit of a difficult topic for the non-meaties. We aren’t exactly stuffing anything, anywhere. So, what exactly are we trying to accomplish? Don’t even get me started on the redundancy of cooking stuffing to compliment a nut roast.

So, it’s time to simplify. Cut back on all of the unnecessary rubbish. If you’ve got one small oven and a kitchen so tiny it rivals that of a camper-van, perhaps it might be best to save yourself the hassle and downsize Sunday dinner.

Cut the carbs. One type of potato is enough. Roast it. Mash is for sausages and onion gravy. Pick two veg that take the same time to roast, and only peel what can fit alongside a frozen nut roast. They’re just not worth making yourself. Even if it’s delicious, Sunday is stressful enough without washing lentils and finely chopping carrots and onions.

Heat the bloody oil first. Everybody tells you it’s essential for crispy roasties. And I’ve never believed them. But here I am, listening, receiving, changing. Wack the pan on the hob for a few minutes, or if you’re too nervous, like me, do it in a frying pan and transfer to a roasting dish once you’ve given them a zhuzh.

Don’t underestimate sausage and mash. It’s a respectable dish.

Finally, if you’re going to go through the effort of making a vegan cauliflower cheese, cashew sauce and all, leave the broccoli for a weekday stir-fry. It’s just not worth the complication of different cooking times. Minimise the opportunity for something to go wrong. Focus on maximising pleasure. More of a good thing is more of a good thing. Cauliflower cheese is a sensual dish, don’t feel shamed into offsetting the pleasure with virtue by boiling peas or carrots.

I used to have a real problem with Sundays until I started working from home. The pressure to cram everything in, while somehow relaxing before the working week started all over again was too much. Now, I’m starting to appreciate the slower pace. Moving to a city, where everything doesn’t close at 4 also helps. Hell, a few months ago I make the mistake of walking down Bangor high street on a Sunday. Not a single shop open (besides my beloved Cafe Nero).

Christmas dinner is the exception. All bets are off.

Next year, I promise to make a real effort to learn to love a quiet Sunday. Maybe, I’ll even have a few without leaving the flat. Just pop an M&S nut roast in, put the telly on, and melt into the sofa. Recharging for another week of business as usual.

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2021: The perfect sponge.

Image of a Victoria Sponge cake taken on Kodak ColorPlus 200 35mm Film. March 2021.

Starting the year, let’s be frank: things were pretty miserable.

Fresh off the back of the Christmas lockdown, plenty of us had spent the Christmas period unable to visit loved-ones. Or in my case, I’d been unable to raise my family’s blood pressure by suggesting that we pan-fry or roast the Brussel sprouts. And with the dull throb of wondering when we’d all be allowed to see each other again, I went to work on Christmas Eve. To a new job I hated more than I’d ever hated any job. Perhaps in part because – on paper at least – it was perfect. Or so everyone told me.

So, off I skipped to catch the bus – mask on and hands already tingling from the alcohol evaporating off them. Having managed to avoid doing so for 10 months already, catching Covid from someone on their way to do last-minute shopping would definitely have sped up the arrival of my P45. I’d have quit with 5 minutes of receiving the text to tell me my test was positive.

After finishing at midday, and being dropped off by a colleague who most certainly took pity on me, we went through the motions. By all means, an M&S Plant Kitchen Christmas is hardly a form of torture. But sat, just the two of us in our tiny flat in Roath, and a year of desperation to feel that safety of the house I grew up in, I would have given both arms to have been able to travel home. Home home.

Over 75s had just started to receive their vaccinations in Wales, and even on the 1st of January, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated how quickly we’d all end up with a needle in our arm and life once again, beginning to blossom.

Photo of a cherry blossom tree in Bute Park. Shot on Kodak ColorPlus 200 35mm. April 2021

It was Monday the 18th of April when I had the phone call. One of the first properly warm days of the year. The saturation of everything switched from 0 to 100. The woman on the other end of the line asked if I could come down right away, explaining that the mass vaccination centre was in located in the old Toys-R-Us in the Bay.

Desperate for the call to end, so I could book my Uber ride, I was already stripping off my pyjamas. This meant that I was an hour early. So after chatting excitedly with a freshly-jabbed taxi driver who seemed more enthused than I was to be dropping me off for mine, I awkwardly spent 5 minutes trying to kill time in the huge Morrisons across the road from Vaccines-R-Us. Until I promptly gave up and checked in 50 minutes early. And you know what? It was to the eager smile of an admin worker who told me ‘yeah, just go straight through, they’ll do it now.’

Only a week later I was sat on the other end of a Microsoft Teams call for the friendliest job interview I’d ever had. Shops were busier, people were less miserable than I’d seen in at least 12 months – maybe longer. Every phone call with a friend, and there were many, were suddenly all about making plans. Not just the kind of plans we’d all made during the many lockdowns we’d been through, but proper, solid, concrete plans.

Of course, they were still punctuated with ‘Oh, we’ll be sensible. Obviously.’ But now we were jabbed. And the fear of losing even more than we already had, started to melt away like snow. Only the occasional glance out the window at the roof of the neighbour’s shed even reminded us it had ever been.

Bute Park April 2021. Taken on Kodak ColorPlus 200 35mm.

And in the rush of everybody’s hearts reopening to the possibility of normalcy. Every little niggling thought at the back of my mind told me if I didn’t deal with the weight of how unwell I’d become, not just over the last year of the pandemic, but really the last decade, I might as well stay home. Carry on pretending the world was closed for business.

For the first time I was able to see how much gloom had descended on my life, and how much disfunction I’d invited, relied upon, to make sense of it. The 2 o’clock cleaning to fend off waves of tears from the worry that, only exagerated by the pandemic, that my friends and loved ones would die, leaving me all alone. Or that I was heading for an early grave. That my worrying was going to send me to an early grave. Or my smoking. Or drinking.

By June, I had started a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, that felt as though I was most certainly drowning. Now on top of the worry I already knew about, was my lack of self-esteem to contend with. And the behaviours that ensued. The way I treated others, and the way I let them treat me. Even the way I facilitated and encouraged it.

Until a moment towards the end of the session, about four weeks in. When, as we wrapped things up for the week, as the counsellor did their standard warm down of well-dones and thank you for showing up did it occur to me, that I didn’t feel worse ending the call. And didn’t feel weepy. Just exhausted and grateful that I was floating. No flailing and splashing. No resistence.

Colwyn Bay Pier, 2021. Shot on Superia Xtra-400 35mm.

As the weeks went on, floating mostly, though still splashing, I moved closer towards the finishing line. Now the line might have just been a course of counselling with a local charity, but getting there felt like stepping onto the most solid ground I’d been on in my adult life. And maybe it was because, at 25, my brain had finally stopped maturing (though the jury’s out on what good that does). Or maybe it was the most validating experience I believe a human can go through: having our worries and fears, and heartache and tears heard by someone who can explain back to us in scientific terms just how normal we really are.

We’re all formed by the context of our lives. And reformed. Forever malleable to the world we’re living in. And I think we even acknowledge this potential for change in the way we push forward with so much terror, everyday. How can I prove my usefulness to my boss, or my family? How can I keep moving so I don’t end up stuck, stagnant? Even if the place we’re stuck has everything we need to find proper world stopping joy. Like discovering you like tea as an adult. Or learning to bake the perfect vegan victoria sponge. Or going for a walk and listening to an audiobook.

For me it was learning to bake. A lot harder than you might think. Especially for someone who tries to cut corners on every meal by cooking in a single pan. But that was it. Slowing down enough to do something for pleasure rather than function was like learning to walk for the first time. Even eating was just a process by which I could end hunger and lower my stress response. The trial and error wasn’t a tear free experience either. But here’s the thing: we don’t often get things right on our first go. Not a cake recipe, or mindfulness.

Disaster Cake – a Chocolate Buttercream Sponge – iced before the cake had cooled. Shot on Kodak ColorPlus 200, 35mm.

I think I’d decided on my 2022 goal, my forever goal, that first week of July. Four weeks into counselling. Go slow.