It Was a Very Good Year...

It seems a little odd to me that people measure their life based on a calendar year - 2013's been what I would describe as 'good year' but I won't be resetting any lifestyle clocks come midnight on NYE. But with 2014 less than 24 hours away, the unavoidable mass of statuses proclaiming 'Good riddance 2013' or 'Wow! What a year XOXO' has dragged me out of my blog-hibernation. So, in the tradition of reflecting on the year just gone  by consigning the chaotic events of life to the 365-day timeframe in which they occurred,  forgive me while I indulge myself.

The first 16 weeks of the year were all focused towards one thing, running my first marathon. Rather than completely destroy my social life, in January, I did manage to go on my first skiing holiday. A trip to Bulgaria's Borovets resort ensured I'm now fully converted to winter sports holidays and 90p pints of beer - those Bulgarians know how to get your attention.

April saw the culmination of four months of training when my brother and I ran the Manchester marathon. I managed to get round in a very respectable 3 hours 44 mins before throwing up and doing my best attempt to catch pneumonia in the runners' village. Lessons learned in 2013: I'm capable of turning blue and getting sunburn at the same time.

The end of May saw the very first post on this here blog. My first Tales of Timler post, entitled Growing Pains, coincided with me taking up musical theatre as a hobby again. For 2014, I've booked myself up with three shows up until August, including a musical revue, Our House at Manchester's Lowry Theatre and a production of Elegies for Angels, Punks & Raging Queens as part of Manchester Pride.

In June, I started visiting car boot sales and collecting vinyl records before buying my first record player in July. July was also the month I rounded a few friends up for a heatwave-enhanced weekend camping at Shell Island. Shell Island was just the start of my summer travels - August saw a short city break in Berlin before a week on the Portuguese coast, grilling piri-piri chicken and kayaking around Lagos.

After months of searching, September was the month in which I finally moved out of my parents' house and into my first non-student house - putting a stop to all the aforementioned revelry. September was also the first time I'd performed on stage for three years, in a one night only variety show for charity, followed quickly by a week in October at the Royal Northern College of Music portraying a vaguely acceptable, mildy racist Chinaman in a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. I should mention that in rehearsal I learned enough Mandarin and Cantonese to woo an impressionable western girl. Make of that what you will...




And finally, in November and December, I spent time recuperating after all that activity. Mostly by eating burgers and buying more records. So, if we're going to place the eggs of my life into a neat, 365-day basket, I'd say it's been a pretty good year... Thank you to everyone who made it one to remember XOXO.