In January 2024 I was looking forward to another year of memory making. Sadly over the course of the year the memories were to be made of friends and family struggling with health and loosing a good friend to cancer. Trips were planned and cancelled as people got ill, some got cancer diagnosed. Some are clear some are dead and some are still in treatment.
2024 wasn't the year I envisaged. However its easy to look back and only remember the bad bits. I like to take photos and they are my visual reminders of what I've done where I've been. In the long distant past when I was much more active on my blogs I'd do a 12 month review... these posts were long and slow to make and slow to read but a good reminder for me on my year .... so this time in the run up to Christmas I'm going to review each month per day so remind myself how lucky I am to have loving family and good friends.
January started off on New Years day with a family get together at our cottage. Our family was in the growing stage at this point with both daughter in laws expecting. As always it was a nice if a little manic day cooking for eight.
On the 3rd I took my mum out from her care home to a favourite cafe - the windmill cafe near West Hallam Ilkeston way. Sadly over the year she's declined with dementia and we can no longer take her out, for such an active 89 year old her not asking to go is such a shame but an inevitability of the condition.
Motorbikes have been an ever present in my life since I was 16. So I've had a bike or two on the road for the last 46 years !! Most of those years I've had a couple of bikes and one has been the all year bike. So it is with my Royal Enfield Himalayan, a real workhorse and it's surprised me how much I've enjoyed riding it for a 24 horsepower 411cc air cooled single. Amazing to think I part exchanged or swapped as it was a direct swap with the dealer my much travelled Honda ST1300 which was a V4 1260cc 117 BHP superbike! I was out in the Staffordshire Peak district on the 4th January, visiting Dovedale and Ilam in the cold and wet - a great time to hone your riding as smoothness on wet greasy roads is a pre requisite.
It was a bit of a warm up to a days green lane'ing organised by a local bike dealer. In late 2023 I'd dropped a deposit down on the successor to the Himalayan - the Himalayan 452 a water cooled version with more power and more tech. I subsequently didn't buy it as on a test ride preferred the simple charm of my existing bike. Anyhow I enjoyed if thats the right word the bimble around the top of Winster and Matlock on some muddy green lanes.
Ever present in 2024 was the conversion of our old two room and outside loo workshop/laundry room back in 2023. I'd split it into 4 rooms using timber from my sons house conversion. Making a smaller laundry room and a workshop at the back with a materials storage area above the new laundry room. Over the year I'd opened up the outside loo by cutting a doorway inside and bricking up the old doorway... photos will appear through the year showing the staggered progress. In January I was framing out the walls to add insulation made from recycled plastic bottles.
At one point it looked like a murder room with all the black plastic !!
We were getting our exercise by walking in and out of the valley, something we don't do as much due to illness ... need to get back on that horse ! This was the 12th January
More workshop conversion therapy ! This was an inside wall and I'm running in the ring mains and lighting circuits, middle of the month 16th January
Next day out walking agin this time up onto Clamgoose lane - great name. It's a nice 4 mile walk all lanes and a couple of fields, some lovely views on the lane which is a bit of a ridge. You can see over to the Roaches and Hen Cloud.
Visiting and taking my mum out again on the 17th Jan. She looks so different to now, a stark reminder we get old far too quickly and that day you promised yourself might still arrive but maybe your body or mind won't be in a condition to do what you thought you would!
I was engaging my mind as well as my legs by getting involved in something called Home Assistant, a cerebral workout to build and run a little server that monitors lots of 'entities' and devices to record sand show data on how the systems in the house are running . It may be a 250 plus year old cottage but its systems are quite modern. This was the start... it's much more now !
Then on the 18th I'm back in the murder room laying an insulated floating floor - limited on the depth due to French doors we had installed last year.
We were fitter in January than we are now for sure. We were back in the valley in the ice on the 19th January.
Walking agin this time on the lane to our cottage on the 25th. In between I'd been tidying the west side solar array wiring - we have panels on the workshop roof I put on in 2023. Also tidying the yard and making stews to keep us nourished.
Back to the windmill cafe with my mum on the 27th January ...
All through January I'd been scanning old photos from a box we have in the loft... lots and lots of long ago memories there .... yes that was the bathroom in our second home !!
I ended the month fetching my lads from the airport after their skiing holiday (take after their old dad) and put some new tyres on my Honda for the coming tours that some happened and others got cancelled.
Ivy Cottage shivering in January cold
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