Happy 2024. New beginnings and sweeping out the old and all that. It’s been a while since I’ve dropped into your inbox - sorry about the delay, the traffic on the roads over here was terrible.
If you subscribed back in the old days when this was my “5+5” Covid newsletter: thanks for not unsubscribing (yet), but I’m going to be switching this up into more of a personal blog here. I love my day job but I have been missing occasionally writing about stuff that isn’t politics or policies or parties. Going forward this will be a bit less-serious, as a bit of an outlet for other writing muscles - hope that’s ok.
One of the things I’ll write about regularly, is one of my New Year’s resolutions. This year, I’ve resolved to try more new things I haven’t done before. I’m aiming for something new each week in 2024, and I’m planning to write about them all: theoretically that’d give me 52 new things to try (and posts), but let’s see how the motivation goes.
Fair warning, they’re not all going to be amazing incredible wondrous new discoveries. Some of them will be things like “learn to change the oil in my car” or “cook something new”. Others will be more fun, like travelling to new places or starting a new hobby. It’s January 2 and I’ve already given a blood plasma donation for the first time (that’ll be my first post, shortly).
I make resolutions every year. Usually just the normal ones: eat more good stuff, drink less bad stuff, exercise more, be nicer to people. They’re the bog-standard ones, but I write them down and put them on a wall somewhere and it’s a good regular reminder to have those things on my mind. This year I’ve done the same thing (be nicer, eat better etc) but added a few more things.
Again, theoretically, 52 more things - but stick around and see where we get to.
Just as I was thinking on this, I saw this Insta post pop up, and it really tickled me:
“Fruit adventure” and “pasta quest” is just really funny, for a start, but it really got me thinking about how easy it can be to find some extra shred of joy in the everyday, to expand your horizons just a tiny bit in a mundane way.
So yes, if you’re wondering, I’ll be doing my own version of fruit adventure (I’m looking forward to finding a dragonfruit and working out what you do with a dragonfruit).
In between reflections on fruit and pasta and oil changes, I’ll share a bit about what I’m writing, reading, watching or thinking too. I’m not sure if Substack newsletters are still in, if they’re out, or if they’ve gone out and maybe already come back in again - but appreciate you being here.
If you’re on other platforms, find me always at:
on Twitter at @JoshButler
on Threads at @joshbutler.journalist
or follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/joshbutlerjournalist
Talk soon. Thanks for reading.
JB.