“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea – any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”

J.R.R. Tolkien

I don’t like making New Year’s “Resolutions” as such. I don’t think that there’s much point in setting resolutions that are going to be hard to keep. Instead, I try and come up with a list of goals, things I want to acheive – and this year, I’ve added a list of places I’d like to visit or do this year.

Unsurprisingly, lots of them are literary related.

Some of them are easily achievable, such as visiting Monk’s House, Virgina Woolf’s Sussex home. Others are slightly further flung – Bronte country, Beatrix Potter’s Lake District home….

I’m a home person. I like being surrounded by familiarity, following my routines, but I also long for adventure in a weird, contradictory way.

And so, I’ve decided to try and have more adventures.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

The thing is – adventure doesn’t have to be far flung or last for months. It doesn’t have to be expensive or a “life time dream”.

It can be a last minute trip to the beach, or a day out walking.

I want to discover new things, see new places. I want to have unplanned adventures. Some of the best things I did last year, were the things that were utterly unplanned or last minute.

So I want to continue that theme this year.

This weekend I’m off to Fowey, and then… who knows!

Do you have any goals for the year?