End of year catch up

October:
* I turned 26, and to celebrate we went to see Back to the Future at the cinema. It was incredible.
*I got a Diana Mini camera for my birthday, which makes it surprisingly easy for me to take good photos
*The week after my birthday I made an effort to start following a vegan diet, and the rules I am playing by are: no dairy or eggs, no meat, but I'm still eating honey and wearing some leather. 
*I went to see an indiepop band called "The Whatevers", and liked them a lot. The second time I went to see them, they said they needed a drummer. I'd been wanting to drum for a while so I said I would try out at their rehearsal the next week. Despite my very basic skills, and minimal time to actually practice my drumming in between drunkenly putting myself forward and trying out, they said I could stay in the band. We've now been recording and planning gigs, and you can hear us here: www.myspace.com/samepowerchords. I absolutely love playing the drums.

 November:
*I planned to write a novel for NaNoWriMo but only got about 4000 words in. It started off being a fictionalised account of my October, with the plan to divert into fantasy once I had written up to speed, but I ended up writing myself into a corner and my characters (being closely modelled on those I had met the month before) seemed incapable of doing things differently to their real-life counterparts. I decided it would be unfair to write them like-for-like so gave in and focussed on the drumming and planning vegan meals.
*I got a junior drumkit from ebay, which is red, shiny, adorable and very useful. It was also only £13.
*It was really icy and cold, and one week I got a snowball thrown in my face whilst cycling, and in an unrelated incident fell off my bike on Meanwood Road. I then gave in and walked everywhere until the thaw, and ended up getting a really persistent cough and cold, and having to take time off work.
*I applied to be a volunteer at Leeds rape crisis centre SARSVL
*I carried on having driving lessons, and passed my theory and hazard perception test third time round.

December:
*I gave myself licence to be less strict with my veganism this month what with Christmas and still being ill and worn out. That sounds like a cop-out as I type, and to be honest I would probably have gotten better more quickly if I had focussed on eating well and not falling back on dairy and snacking on festive food.
*I started going to Leeds Roller Dolls Training, and am making *very* slow progress. 
*I went to the Belle and Sebastian ATP and had a glorious, drama-free time. I especially enjoyed the fun-pool with rapids, the grabber machines and also the bands. The Vaselines and Edwyn Collins were my favourites.
*Set up a tumblr for my diana mini photographs: http://oh-diana.tumblr.com/
*Booked a trip to Paris in the New Year to go see the elles@centrepompidou exhibition
*I got through the selection process for SARSVL so will be starting training in the new year. To make time for this, I decided to stop volunteering at Brownies, which was surprisingly emotional, but the definitely the right decision.
*On new years eve I went out to the commonplace, twisted my ankle on the way there and then danced on it all night and walked home to Meanwood. Ended up talking more freely, and kissing more people than usual, but I suppose it was new year's eve after all.

January:
*Woke up on the 1st with a really swollen ankle, which is only just starting to feel better. Read back issues of the fantastic magazine make/shift, drank a lot of tea, watched a lot of Little House on the Prairie.
*Did all this again in the 2nd January, then went round to see friends in the evening for a vegan potluck and films with "Paris" in the title.
*Today I made some great peanut chilli, and am just waiting for the bread to rise before I bake it. I've already mended my first puncture of the year, and cheated by just putting in a new inner tube as I suspected it was a slow puncture as the bike was fine last time I rode it.
*And tomorrow I have to go back to work. 

So that's an overview of what I've been doing instead of blogging. I've started keeping a paper journal again for 2011 to give me some perspective and hopefully spot patterns in my behaviour, but hopefully that's something I will do alongside maintaining this blog!