The broken record of not enough time...

Time to pull out the tiny violins

Honestly, I bore myself.

Yet here I am again, lamenting at how time goes so quickly, how I’ve been practically invisible on Substack and how I have eleventy billion ideas for posts I would like to write, but haven’t. Standard Hannah.

There is a simple solution to all this - make time.

Not easy for everyone but pretty straightforward for me. And yet…

I also say this about the fact the garden has been abandoned since October, housework is something I only half-heartedly engage in, I’ve only written 3,000 words of an 80,000 word book and I’m still bumbling along in my freelance life because, although I have a bunch of ideas, I haven’t actualised any of them yet.

Focus is my main issue and procrastination. I am a pro. It’s far more fun to go down a rabbit hole of new ideas than put any of the existing plans or ideas into practice - they get boring so damn quickly.

That’s why next year I’m giving myself a fighting chance and moving to a 4 day work week - it’s all Fri-Yays for 2025. Fridays will be spent IN the business, ON the book, IN the garden and ON Substack.

That’s the plan and long may it last, well at least past January, please.

Things I plan to write about in 2025

Setting myself up with a bit of accountability.

• The best and worst books of 2024

• Permaculture, growing your own, the garden

• Grief

• The back story and how I ended up in Orkney

• Orkney

• The house renovation

• Women, how bloody angry I am right now and working through what I can do even though I feel utter despair.

Side note: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper is the best book I’ve read in 2025; She Said is a must watch (also a book); Gisèle Pelicot, at the moment, no words, just rage, hopelessness and sadness.

The storm rages

The storm inside me has been equalled by the ever present weather. It’s been weathery, so weathery in fact that the little abandoned touring caravan up the road has been completely flipped over. So weathery, that I walked past it on Sunday but didn’t notice until Monday because on Sunday, there was no looking up! Saturday we hit around 90mph gusts, it’s been the worst since another unnamed storm last year.

Our storms don’t get named, apparently the storm that caused some wreckage across Skye & Orkney didn’t count for enough. The storm that had people asking, how did you weather the storm, any damage? That‘s a first for us. So I’m giving it a name - Ernest - because it was very earnest.

Christmas in Orkney

Christmas is beginning to look familiar, this will be our third in Orkney and fifth just the two of us and I’m still settling into our routine. Christmas has always been dominated by my family and involves the usual travels, sometimes we could cover all bases in the two days with Christmas Day with mum & one brother and Boxing Day with dad and another brother. This was traditionally followed up by the pub crawl walk across parts of Kent/East Sussex on the 27th December (dad, both brothers and friends) which became more difficult when people started having kids.

The first Christmas without Mum we spent with my dad and step-mum which was lovely and the perfect antidote to being without the person who started getting excited about Christmas in November! Little did I know it would be our last with Dad as covid hit and then he went and died too.

That all being said, when it’s such a ballache to get south, staying put makes much more sense and every trip down south is like a mini Christmas but without the added palava. We see all the family, have meals, go out for meals, descend on my step-mum and make her have a party…that kind of thing!

So tonight we’ll probably open a bottle of Cava, watch some Christmas TV or The Holiday and tomorrow will be bacon sarnies, followed by a family walk before we come home to cook the beef. Boxing day will be a case of eating leftovers and sweet treats, working on the puzzle I haven’t finished, watching telly and drinking tea and wine.

So, here’s to a year of writing (hopefully), finding ways to quell the storm and a Christmas spent exactly the way we need it to be: simple, quiet and just us.

I hope you have a lovely week (or so) celebrating, or not, in a way that works for you. Whether it’s wine and beef, family mayhem, or just a bit of peace and quiet, may it be exactly what you need.

Till next year.

Take care

Hannah

A bouquet of kale just for the sake of it!