Eat Your Words: January 2012

I have been telling everyone that I have kept my New Year's Resolutions simple this year: exercise more and spend less. I have kind of achieved both by ditching the planned gym membership (approx 700 euros for a year) and buying a three-month pass valid in all the municipal pools of Paris. The facilities are less than glamorous, and it comes with a slight risk of athlete’s foot, but hey, it only cost 39 euros. And I’ve been swimming three times a week since I bought it, so it’s practically paid for itself already.

Since the start of the year, I have added a new resolution to the list: to be on time more often. In Paris it’s very easy to get into bad habits. I spend another 10 minutes in the office, to just send one more email. Or I refresh Facebook one more time in the morning before work. Then I look up – my god, is that the time! And I dash off to the metro, adrenaline pumping. I feel like I spent last year in a constant state of apology, when what I actually needed was just to exercise a little more discipline and walk away from the computer slightly before the last minute.

I realised that this had become a chronic habit last Saturday when I had to ring my knee specialist to say I would be 5-7 minutes late. He is a highly skilled professional, who has the consideration to offer his patients convenient appointments on Saturdays, and here I was being late for his first slot of the day, which would wreak havoc with his schedule. So now I am making an extra special effort to be on time for everything. I am even getting up half an hour early so I can catch an early metro (hopefully getting a seat) to arrive at work earlier. This gives me more time to go to the pool at lunchtime, so I’m not feeling rushed at the end of the day. Hopefully this is the start of a virtuous circle.

Now I just have to watch out for that unforgiveable Parisian sin, being early. I know I hate it when people turn up before I’m ready for them. In fact quite often when I invite people over, I don’t have everything prepared on time, so I find myself praying they will be late. I have been known to send someone down to the local shops to get me a paper when they arrived ahead of time for brunch. About 10-15 minutes late is polite – anything more than that and a good excuse is perhaps in order.

So the moral of the story is, please give me positive reinforcement when I’m on time – but you can be a bit late if you want. That will just give me that little bit longer to bask in the glow of my punctuality.

And of course I’m a bit late with my first blog of the year, but my interwebz has been playing up at home. My web browser decided to pack a sad when I got to New Zealand, for some unfathomable reason, and hasn’t been working since… until the other day when it just spontaneously righted itself! So check out some photos if you like: