The Christmas decorations are down and packed away, with the exception of a few, newly named, ‘winter lights’ to keep a bit of cheerfulness running through January. The Christmas cake is eaten; the last few pieces sustaining us through a walk around Nidderdale.

A week into 2020 and I am still resolved to train for the hilly 10k runs in the spring. A couple of short runs this week have helped to get me back into the running habit. I did achieve the milestone of 61 parkruns ahead of my birthday later this month. Was I only joking when I announced that I would only need to do one parkrun a year now to stay ahead of my age? It was another slow run; but I was there and we are reminded every week that ‘parkrun is a run, not a race’.

This granny also rediscovered the joy of going for a swim this week. Not quite the exhilarating experience of swimming in the sea that I am promising myself for later in the year, just a session up and down the local pool. Hard work, but very satisfying and I have promised myself that I will be back for more.

In other news, the first week in January saw this granny celebrating a minor success: the judges of the Edinburgh international flash fiction award 2020 selected one of my pieces for their long list and for publication later this year. From now on, it will not only be #thisgrannyruns but also #thisgrannywrites. https://www.storyawards.org

2019 ended, as it had begun, with an afternoon walk along the canals at Marple. The year felt well bookended; we had travelled a full circle. Then a trip northwards and 2020 began with friends and a conga through a quiet Lake District village, closely followed by a game of Linkee. Meticulous marking by the question master made it a very late night.

Four of us agreed that we would be out bright and early for the local park run. To be fair, it wasn’t that early (10.30) and we weren’t that bright. But we were there. Whinlatter Forest: a hilly route, tough at the best of times. Fuelled by much Prosecco and little sleep, it was a challenge. We were 4 among 421 runners, a record number for the course.

It being New Year’s Day, we all achieved a personal best for the year. It was actually my slowest recorded park run. It would have been slower but for the encouragement of Sue, running hard on my heels to the finish. I did achieve the personal milestone of completing my 60th park run whilst still being 60. The weekend’s plan, of course, includes reaching 61 park runs before my next birthday.

By the time we returned to the village, those who had not run were ready for a walk. Any remaining cobwebs of the old decade were well and truly blown away by a march along the coffin road above Loweswater.

We tried to avoid spoiling the day talking politics. Surprisingly, we were reasonably successful. Over the course of the walk, talk inevitably turned towards new year resolutions and intentions. Some will be doing dry January; others veganuary. By the end of the day, this granny had somehow signed up for two undulating 10k runs before Easter… the resolution being to actually train for them and not to simply turn up on the day wondering how I got there.

And now it’s ‘Little Christmas Eve’; the day before Christmas Eve, an expression learned by my family, many years ago, from Jostein Gaarder’s ‘The Christmas Mystery’.  The jobs that are done are done, the ones that are left undone are labelled unimportant, and definitely not urgent. The sprouts have arrived, along with the other vegetables and the meat.

Tomorrow will be a day of preparation. Today is a day of anticipation and reflection. Remembering Christmases past, relishing the present and already reflecting on the future. This morning’s news reports brought the statistic of the decade: the estimated accumulated deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is 8.4million football pitches. In another traditional statistical measurement, I make that roughly equivalent to a country three times the size of Wales.

This granny is no ecologist, but neither am I unwise. I recognise that is a lot of trees. The lungs of the earth are shrinking. Shrinking fast. We have a responsibility to take care of the earth. I will definitely be looking at how I can live differently to minimise my own carbon footprint. That will be a part of working positively towards changing things I cannot accept.

But let’s not be too gloomy. It’s the season of joy, love, hope and peace. A celebration of the birth of Christ. A time to make merry with family and friends; but I think that we are all waking up to the fact that there’s no room in the festivities for unnecessary waste. I’ll be challenging myself to do better in 2020.

In 1987, I celebrated the birth of my first daughter and cried at the outcome of the general election. In 2019, I celebrated the birth of my second granddaughter. Once again, the people have spoken. Or have they?

After the shock of the exit poll and the harsh reality of the result; I am left looking at the data and believing that, yet again, it is the system that is the real winner.

Beneath the ‘huge swing’ from 318 to 365 Conservative MPs lies a tiny shift in voting. A shift from 42.5% to 43.6%. The swing in power from such a tiny change in mood is frightening.

The winner takes all, leaving so many losers. For now I, among so many others, must accept the result as something I cannot change. But that does not mean that I’m not still sad and angry!

For now, it’s time to enjoy the peace, love and joy of Christmas. But my hope for 2020 is to find a way of working positively towards changing things I cannot accept.

Christmas lists. Lists of lists. Food to order; presents to buy; cards to send. I’ve done it for years. And suddenly this year it all feels out of control. I’ve not sat down and made a master list. Carrying everything in my head is stressful. Jobs that are normally completed before advent still swirl in my head and into the pit of my stomach.

‘Tell me what to do and I’ll do it’, says Mr A. I give him a task. ‘Why?’ He asks, then how and where and when. It doesn’t ease my stress.

No structure, no routine and everything feels like it is hitting at once. Then, on Saturday, I am invited to an Advent carol service and lunch. I could do without it, but I go, and enjoy it.

At the lunch, I pass the plate of mince pies along the table to my neighbour. ‘No thank you’, she says, ‘I’m being good’.

‘Well I’m having one, does that make me bad?’

‘It’s alright for you, you run’ was the response. As if running was something I couldn’t help, an activity beyond my control. An involuntary reaction.

I managed to enjoy the, admittedly small, mince pie, despite the sin I was obviously committing. It was delicious, I felt no shame.

It never occurred to me when I first started running that it was a calorie burning exercise. I started on a whim and enjoyed the headspace. The mental health benefits have subsequently been well documented.

I did go out for a run this morning, the first for a month. It cleared my head and straightened my thoughts; I re-ordered my priorities. I’d better get back in the habit if I’m to enjoy the remains of the Advent season.

The Christmas pudding is made; packed into its bowl ready for steaming and lighting on Christmas day. Stir up Sunday has passed, Advent is fast approaching. 24 short days of anticipation, surrounded by long winter’s evenings.

This year, amongst the Christmas cookbooks and catalogues with their promises of sparkling wonder, we are receiving electoral post. It all feels very unusual, election and Advent jostling together for attention. It is unusual: the first December general election for nearly a century; the first since the 1928 Representation of the People Act gave women the vote on the same terms as men.

I have voted in every general election since 1979: in school halls, libraries and churches of different denominations.  Once, with a holiday booked, I needed to leave a proxy to deliver my vote. I heard the 1987 election results, with a heavy heart, in a layby in the heart of France.  

I have always wanted to see a degree of fairness in the world, with properly funded public services accessible to all. I describe myself as a cheerful taxpayer, recognising the cost as well as the benefits of quality services. This time, as much as any other, I am encouraging everyone to use their right to vote. And to think carefully about the future of public sector health, education and other services; all taken for granted in this granny’s lifetime.

In the meantime, the first Sunday in Advent approaches; a time of light. Whatever the post election headlines on Friday 13 December: there is a light shining in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

At the weekend I was happy to babysit for my new granddaughter whilst her mum went out for her first post baby run. Just half an hour of child-free head space brought her back to us glowing. It’s true that running is every bit as much about mental health as physical and it was great to be part of the support team.

My own running habit has been less active since the last ‘justtenmiles’. Call it a rest for a couple of weeks. Not even a park run, the local course is sitting under a temporary lake.

Without the running, my writing fades a little too. The rhythm and solitude of running defines my thinking space. The breathing in and breathing out required to maintain a steady pace unravels my thoughts. I find words as I run, they tumble into my consciousness. Quite literally, I take an idea and run with it. I write poems in my head, short stories; perfectly crafted sentences. Sometimes I remember them when I get home; sometimes the words make it onto a page, often they don’t.

A new friend, a lovely gentle person, Elizabeth, asked could I record the words as I run? ‘I don’t take my phone’ I said. ‘I don’t run with headphones or a playlist.’ She laughed out loud and, with a distinctly different emphasis, said ‘I don’t run with headphones or a playlist either’.

The second ‘justtenmiles’ has been run: a relentlessly undulating route around Derwentwater. It was tough. The third time we have done this; the 60th time the event has been held. Having spent the whole year celebrating my own 60th birthday, this race needed to be run.

In good Lakeland fashion, it was a day for filling the lakes and waterfalls. We started and finished in rain, a real challenge in glasses. Water streaming down the lenses; the view misted by my breathing out, I struggled to see my feet, let alone the road ahead. Climbing above the lake, the views, even in the rain, are stunning. Rich autumn colour framed the water, rewarding me each time I wiped my glasses.

With fewer than 500 runners, mostly (but not quite all) significantly faster than me, for the latter part of the run I was very much alone.  No struggling to find a space in which to run. Lots of time to live the run inside my head, creating new memories, reliving old ones. Remembering the day I paraphrased Wainwright: telling my young children that Catbells was a hill to take your granny up. In snow and wind, they questioned this piece of wisdom. A re-reading of the text suggests that grannies should take care!

This granny was undaunted by the weather, striding out (or struggling?) to the end. Resisting my cautious instinct to hold myself back on the downhill, I let gravity do its work, fearlessly enjoying the thrill of descent. The belief that every uphill was the last kept me running up them; only remembering at the end how much tougher the second five miles was than the first. I’ve no immediate plans now for another ‘justtenmiles’; but this granny will keep on running.

October half term: the clocks have been put back an hour, the evenings are getting longer. It’s time to get used to coming home in the dark.

The clock in my car has not been put back an hour. But, for the first time since March, it is now in line with the rest of the country. I get used to it. It has caused occasional confusion to Mr A. He nearly ‘put it right’ for me just a couple of weeks ago. After two seasons of mental adjustment, putting it right at that time would have been more confusing.

In our house, for over thirty years, October half term has signalled the time for making a Christmas cake. This year’s cake is in the oven now, in the old tin, wrapped around with brown paper. The first smells of Christmas filling the house come as much from the hot paper as the spices.

The fruit was well soaked in brandy beforehand and the cake will be spoon fed over the coming weeks. It’s a rich fruit cake, always made to the same recipe; Delia’s, in which she says ‘any cake full of such beautiful things can’t fail to taste good’. She’s not been wrong yet, although this morning there was just a moment’s hesitation over the use by date on the black treacle (not long enough past to worry about it spoiling everything else, I decided).

It’s very much a tradition rather than a chore; bringing with it a glimmer of anticipation, hope and light as the days get shorter.