Last week was my birthday, in one way I hate that it’s so close to Christmas, no one really has the money or the energy to do anything but I still feel like celebrating. In another way, I love how close it is to the new year – I really enjoy reflecting on what’s happened and what I want to see happen in the next year and I get to do it all at once.

This year, M and I went to our usual birthday restaurant, Coppinger Row in Dublin. We had a gorgeous dinner, unfortunately it was Thursday though so it was pretty busy. A couple of years ago my birthday was a Monday or Tuesday and the place was pretty much empty – not good for business but good for me! M gave me the first three books in the Dexter series, and the most gorgeous Victorinox knife. Clearly we’re not killers, or even vaguely violent people, but I’m a big Dex fan and I do love a good pocket knife.

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You see, the Christmas before I took my ‘big trip around Asia’ which turned into more of an expat situation in Vietnam, he got me a Leatherman pocket knife. I’d always wanted one but didn’t really need one, ever. But what  does a girl need as a solo traveller more than a knife? Exactly, that was my logic. And I loved it truly. It went everywhere with me, on every trip I’ve taken since then. I even packed in when I was going back to Vietnam this year. I put it in a pouch where it would be super extra safe; so safe that I never quite managed to locate it during my whole trip. But no mind, maybe I actually didn’t pack it. Although, I was so sure I had.
But I had! And thanks to that lovely Vietnamese security man at Da Nang airport I found it! In my carry on… How dopey can one girl get?

So I had to say goodbye to my lovely purple girly pocket knife and be glad it was the only loss of the trip. But I was really sad. So M took this opportunity to fill that hole that has been in my luggage since. But this one is manly enough that we’re going to share it. I’m so excited about using it, part of me wants to plan a trip just so I can use it loads.

Another reason I love the idea of having a knife is this song, click through to Spotify it.

Guy Clark – The Randall Knife

And this next year before I land in the big three oh? Well, there’s just a few goals for this year, I want to keep them little and manageable and related to my word for the year, GROW. So here are a few:

  • Read 10 books: I’ve already made a great start on this, I started Bonnie Nadzam’s Lamb last week and finished it on Saturday. It was a beautifully disturbing read and I truly enjoyed getting lost in it. I feel like I haven’t read a book from start to finish in about a year and I have no good reason not to. I’ve started The Useful Art of Procrastination thanks to a recommendation from my mother, who knows I’m too quick to say yes to things without really thinking about it. I’ll let you know how it goes.
  • Build my blog: I need to actually commit to this, I’m pretty damn lazy at the actual typing lark, the committing. But I’ll work on it.
  • Socialise more: I need to spend time on the relationships I have all over the place that I really don’t nurture. There are friends I haven’t seen enough of recently and I’m going to try to change that, if they want to see me of course, ahem?
  • Take lots of photos: I’m working on my photo challenge and also going to do a photo-a-day each month for the year. Yep. I still think it’s more manageable than 365..I hope!
  • Play music: I bought a beautiful blue bass in 2011 and played it a fair bit but then I got totally distracted and forgot about it basically. But for Christmas I got an amazing plug the guitar into the telly and play it thingy and I love it. The songs are great and I got 63% accuracy on my first go. Not bad!

That’s about it for now. Another goal is to stop writing ridiculously long lists of stuff I probably won’t ever do.

Thanks for reading, call back soon for more!
éadaoin