Giles Brown
New Year, New You!
Here we go again. It’s the first month of 2018 and that cracking and dull thudding sound that you hear all around you is the unmistakable noise of people’s New Year resolutions breaking and hitting the ground.
I understand that the beginning of another year is always the time when most people decide that something ‘really has to be done’, but to be honest, the majority of my friends have enough trouble readjusting to the fact that the Festive Season is finally over.
This means that waking up wondering what day it is and having a large Baileys and handful of Quality Street for breakfast before slumping on the sofa in one’s onesie and watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single sitting is no longer socially acceptable.
Unless you are a freelancer, obviously.
January is always the month that gym memberships, boot camp classes and Spanish language courses fill up with eager newbies, all intent on finally making that fresh start.
The thought just struck me that someone should perhaps try setting up a gym class/Spanish class combination, where you could do Pilates while discovering the correct usage of ‘usted’ and ‘tu’.
I expect, however, that the ‘mañana’ effect would soon pervade, leaving lots of unopened exercise books and disregarded exercise plans.
I tend to get around the whole exercise thing by my Casita lifestyle that invariably sees me lugging logs around for the fire, pipes for the water and more often than not myself up the 1.5 kilometre mountain track when the 4×4 is playing up.
My other job as a radio presenter sees me burn off several hundred calories of nervous energy when I’m live on air, while delivering this fine publication every two weeks is also something of a cardio workout. Especially in August.
I’ve also got the language thing cracked.
Living in Andalucia, where the locals ‘eat their words’ and gesture when they speak, I’ve found perfect solution is to mumble quickly while waving my hands around and finishing each sentence with ‘claro’, ‘tio’ or ‘porfa’.
The only problem is understanding what my neighbours are saying in equally mumbled Andaluz, and I once famously misheard when I thought I was being asked if I was tired (estas cansado?), when my neighbour actually meant if I was married (estas casada?)
“I am a little, but nothing that a good night in bed won’t fix,” I replied.
He hasn’t been back since….
