Know thyself

and other notes

1 So there I was at 07.45 on January 1, contemplating a sink, which contained a pot filled with very cold and dirty water. We, 18 of us, were in a very lovely house in Norfolk and I wanted to make amends for going to bed the night before at 12.01 and being No Fun, by coming down early to do some washing-up. And now I had to plunge my hands into this sensory nightmare of cold water, grease and unknown sludge. It was a small sacrifice for spending the days over New Year at such a lovely house with my dear friends.

But - Oh! Why hadn’t I packed my rubber gloves? I tell you why: because when I stood in my kitchen, thinking, “I ought to pack rubber gloves, just in case,” I thought immediately and at the same time, “Don’t be so weird.” Then we arrived at the house and I found no rubber gloves. When I got back to London I sent a picture to the group chat of me with my rubber gloves with the caption “Reunited with my beloveds”.

I don’t make New Year resolutions because I think they are arbitrary and you set yourself up to fail. Instead, all year round I try to just know myself better. And, be realistic about what I am really like, as opposed to what I’d like to be like. This year I’m going to take my own advice. The rubber gloves are coming with me everywhere and I don’t care if it’s weird.

2 Dry skin has never been my issue, but it is right now: it’ll be the central heating and the freezing air. I wanted to get my hands on the La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baum B5, which is great for this sort of thing, but it was not stocked at my local pharmacy and I couldn’t wait for a delivery. So I went for the Avène Cicalfate Restorative Protective Cream and it’s getting the job done, which actually better absorption rates than the Cicaplast, from memory.

3 Edwina told Giles over New Year that she has a books spreadsheet, where she writes down all the books she’s read in the year. She read so many books last year! I started thinking about how many books I read. It feels like about four, but maybe it was more than that. Do I need a books spreadsheet? Do you have a books spreadsheet?

4 My Sunday scaries were epic this weekend.