Woody Wonders

Another quarter, another year and a whole decade to review!! Boring and repetitive I know, but seriously, it doesn't feel like it's been a year since I sat down and thought about my goals for 2019.  Yet here we are, not only at the end of another quarter, another year but at the end of a decade, a whole decade of life experiences to review and learn from for the next decade - eek! So let's start off by reviewing Q4 and hopefully there's plenty of things you've been working on throughout the year and this quarter has been all about dotting the i's and crossing the t's.  As always, I'll kick things off by giving you an update on what my goals for 2019 were and how I've finished the year. Update on Woody's Goals Start a blog.   To be honest, I really wasn't sure about how this was going to go and I'm massively proud of the fact that I've managed to blog every week even whilst being on holiday.  I started the blog ...

Joyeux Noel  This weekend I am coming to you live from France. It’s become a bit of a tradition for me and Mr Bob to have a little mini break in France just before Christmas and it’s something we very much look forward to. Christmas shopping is quieter and much less frenetic in France than it is back home and there’s no end of willing people to wrap your presents for you in the most prettiest and chicest of ways.  We’re staying about halfway between Le Touquet, a chic little town we love and Berck, a place whose name always makes us giggle as it literally means ‘yuk’ in French which it’s definitely not and has THE most fabulous beach.  The hotel we’re staying in this year is almost brand new and despite realising I was English, the receptionist continued to speak to me in very clear French which I love. It always takes me a little while to ‘tune in’ so there’s things that I sometimes miss in conversations and have to ask again but it’s really important to me that the ...

What a wonderful time of year .... right?!! This is an honest, warts and all blog so look away now if you're easily offended. Christmas, a time to show how much you care for your loved ones and spend time with the family.  What could possibly go wrong??  Well in my experience, lots!  I used to get incredibly stressed at this time of year when I was younger, trying to please everyone and rushing round visiting everyone.  Jeez, it's not as if you're never going to see these people again so why do you end up trying to squeeze in visits to 36 people in the space of 3 days.   The fact is that you can't please everyone and it's your time for a break just as much as everyone else's but we don't want to admit that do we, so instead we put our own happiness to one side and focus on everyone else.  Is it any wonder then that by the time Christmas is over we're completely frazzled and burnt out instead of feeling energised and ready to face the New ...

I dare you I'm setting you a dare this week and on the surface it sounds really simple but apparently it's really not. Your dare, should you wish to accept it, is to say thank you to the next person who pays you a compliment.  Easy right? Well, I was actually quite saddened last Tuesday evening at my running club.  Throughout winter we have a club race every 3 weeks or so and there's 8 races in total so of course you will have good runs and not so good runs during that time.  I was amazed by the number of people last week who were so quick to dismiss a compliment from their fellow runners.  People were saying 'oh well done tonight' and 'you looked to be having a good run' and all I heard in return was 'no, I was rubbish tonight' or 'I wasn't as good as last time' etc etc. Now in my eyes that's bordering on damn well rude to the person who's paying you a compliment.  Think about for a second, they didn...

Well, I wasn't expecting that! This weekend, me and the lovely Mr Bob have been in Edinburgh and although we had a fantastic time whilst there, we had a few unexpected challenges in terms of the journey.  Unlike most long journeys, we were actually really excited as we had first class tickets all the way so this was going to be a special treat. We drove down to Meadowhall to catch the train, which is just 20 minutes from home. However, when we arrived at the station there were no parking spaces.  No great shakes, Plan B, we’ll go in the Park & Ride.   Erm, n o spaces in there either and our train leaves in 5 minutes.  Okay then, Plan C, we’ll drive into Sheffield and jump on the next train.  Ten minutes later we were parking at Sheffield station. Yay, back on track.  We had about 40 minutes to wait for the train to Manchester Piccadilly so we headed for the first class lounge.  Great, we were warm, we had coffee and we had bis...

Do you feel a sense of achievement? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment? Are you happy? If not, then I'd urge you to seriously consider your options.  Don't be a drifter, 'Saturday night at the movies' - no, not that kind of drifter (look it up, I'm showing my age!).  I mean, don't drift through life.  A couple of years ago I finally faced up to the fact that I was going to be 50 in 2020.  Hardly ancient these days I know, but nevertheless this is going to be a major milestone for me.  It got me thinking about lots of things, including work and, as many of you know, I changed jobs in 2018 after almost 14 years in my previous one.  I wasn't unhappy by any stretch of the imagination, it was just that I didn't want to end up 'drifting' for the rest of my working life.  I'd stopped feeling challenged in my work and felt I had more to give.  So, despite being terrified at the prospect of changing my whole working life, I knew it had t...

Sport changes lives .... .... I've witnessed it first hand and I've also experienced it myself.  My blog this week is a small step in helping to spread this message far and wide. This weekend the delightful Mr Bob and myself have been at our annual British Athletics Supporters Club event.   We’ve been attending for the last goodness knows how many years and during that time we’ve had the privilege of meeting some amazing British athletes, both up and coming and gold medal winners. One very notable year was when we got the opportunity to meet Jessica Ennis-Hill shortly after she’d won her fabulous Olympic gold medal in London.   How she coped with the expectation of the whole nation is beyond belief. The weekend is also an opportunity to meet up with lots of people who we’ve become good friends with over the years and the great thing is that every single person who attends already has something in common, we all love athletics, so it’s not hard to strike up a co...