My diary decade

About ten years ago I started writing a diary. (Call it mid-life crisis.) I started out with the quirky approach of writing to an imaginary 13-year-old girl called Dinah.  When I saw GANGS OF NEW YORK, I wrote: "I know you want to see any movie with Leo DiCaprio in it, but I can understand your mother not wanting you to see this one." But that approach was unsustainable and I soon reverted to a more conventional approach.

This diary was a chance for me to write longhand regularly.  I'd always write about what I'd eaten for dinner because I'd always eaten something and it gave me something to write about every day, if only something small.  I figure that's why Samuel Pepys wrote about food so much.

I haven't written as much in recent years.  There was a time when I'd write every day, or at least six times a week.  But in the last year I wrote once or twice a week so I could be sure each entry would fill a whole page.  I stopped writing it when I visited London this September, and turned to this blog when I returned.

I may have to take a break from this blog for the rest of December (I haven't been feeling much energy), or just write irregularly.  But I hope to return to posting every day in the new year, which is barely a fortnight away!