6 months is a long time in real life

I've neglected the cathartic process of blogging for many months. I thought I'd get better at life, but it continues to have me in a half nelson. Anyway, during some away time with work, now seems a good time to pick up the process again. I may as well start with some stuff that happened (or will come to happen):

1. A big family wedding in Cyprus.
2. Decided to sell the caravan. Currently on the market.
3. Actively seeking to move a bit closer to a local village-within-the-city.
4. Agreed to do a half marathon (but see below).
5. The project I'm on in work has entered its final, frenzied few months.
6. My wife dropped to 3 days work a week to great effect.

I'm pretty sure loads more happened than that. Something about Wales qualifying for Euro 2016 - and then proceeding to electrify a nation by getting to the semis - springs to mind. Got a proper grown up telly as well. I'm not into bling and possessions, but a decent telly is a great investment.

• Paint x1 miniature per month. Guaranteed. No shenanigans. Just do it.
• Cook a new vegan dish per week.
• Do at least 6 decent mountain walks.
• Learn to use my camera in proper manual mode and look like a pro.
• Re-learn French (to be achieved in conjunction with painting).
• Jog twice a week.

To address some of my previous goals as outlaid in my previous post (see above), i have managed to paint one miniature. I have continued to push boundaries with my cooking, but probably failed with one new dish a week. I've done probably one mountain walk. The camera has gone far better, and while i don't do much with it I'm beginning to get to grips with stuff. I need to keep on with that and also develop my composition skills. On the learning/re-learning French, I had a really productive period of listening to French lessons in the car, but i need to get back on them after a period of time away from it. And then the running.... This has actually happened. Or at least it has quite recently. I even agreed to a half marathon, and was of the opinion that i could manage it until even more quite recently I had a minor operation to remove my little swimmers. That put me out of action for a few weeks, and my employment has also now started to encroach on the precious work/life balance, taking me away for some days at a time. This only looks like worsening over the final few months of the project, with trips to the north of Wales for several days at a time likely to be interrupting any routine i was building up with my running partner who, incidentally, is quite apparently far fitter than me. We'd taken our runs up to a 6 mile distance not long before i had the snip, but i fear for how I'm going to get back to that quickly enough and hit a 10 mile target before the main event that's now less than 2 months away. Add to that a constant need to evacuate my bowels whenever i run, I'm in a bit of a dark place with it all. I'm going to get back on it next week and hope for the best.

Here's that miniature i painted: