I never get around to anything...

Last week I managed four short rides, which I was proud of, but this week, despite two days working from home, I didn't ride. In fact, today, Saturday, finds me considering a ride to mum's, literally, or possibly going out around 0800hrs to Oxted where I could get a haircut while I'm there. I need a haircut and I also need to visit the dentist, in fact the latter is urgent but I keep putting it off, which is what I'm like at the moment. I've noticed that I don't DO anything, despite saying that I must do this and I must do that, I simply don't DO a thing. There are so many promises in my head but none of them have been fulfilled. For years I've been promising myself a bass guitar so that I can learn something, ie learn to play a musical instrument. Somewhere back in the past I recall reading an article about stress busting, which claimed that playing a musical instrument can be a major way of de-stressing. But since then (and we're going back over 10 years) I simply haven't bothered, either because I haven't had the spare cash or because I find myself wondering 'Do I really want to play a musical instrument?' It's not as if I'm going to form a band and become some amazing musical sensation, I'm not, I'll just be one of those sad individuals who plays in their bedroom (or in my case, our so-called 'garden room'). Well, so what? Yes, I get that, so what? But I find myself talking down the idea and it's like so many things. Let's take the fireplace in our living room: another long-term idea that simply hasn't happened. We have the fireplace we inherited when we bought the house, which is basically a hole in the wall with nothing in it. Over the years we've added the odd electric stove (the height of naffness) but I've always wanted a real fire. But for various reasons it's never materialised and now, some 20+ years later it's still the same as it was when we moved in, a gaping hole in the wall that lets in the cold air. In fact, at this very moment we are reconsidering the whole thing, which means it could very well happen but I'm now asking myself, Do I really want a real fire? All that ash and preparations needed just to keep warm? In truth I don't and I'm finding that I have all these things that need doing but they simply don't get done because the reality is I don't need them or I simply can't be bothered or I go halfway towards doing something but then, for some reason, the process stops and I turn around a year later and start thinking about it again. This coming Christmas is easily the tenth or eleventh Christmas when I had planned to have a fire installed for the big day, but every years somebody remarks that nothing's been done about it. I'm supposed to be going there today to finalise options, 'there' being the fireplace shop, but today other things are on the cards which will most likely stop the process for another week.Another thing I keep saying I'm going to do is sign up for a swimming pool membership. That idea has been going on for well over a year and nothing has happened. I'll go to the pool, enquire about the different memberships but then do nothing about it, nothing at all. Holidays are the big one. "We must go on holiday next year," I'll assert after having not gone the year prior. Why haven't we gone? Because nobody booked in advance, which is what you're supposed to do, book in the new year for a holiday in the summer, but no, nothing. This year we faffed around, we got hold of brochures, even spoke to a travel agent but did we go anywhere? No, we ended up in the Cotswolds on what amounted to a 'short break' plus a week at home not being on holiday. And so it goes on and on and on. We think of stuff, say we must do X or Y or Z but we don't do anything. In short, we don't bite the bullet and I'll admit that it's starting to annoy me. But even the fact that it annoys me doesn't mean that anything gets done, nothing has been done about anything and I'm beginning to think that the reason is simple: I don't want to do any of things I keep saying I'm going to do, I don't need the things that I think I need with the only exception being a holiday. Right now, as the time approaches 0800hrs, I should be getting ready for a ride on the bike, I really ought to, but I'm not, I'm sitting here at 0757 wondering whether I should go later, but I know only too well that 'later' means somebody will say, 'take the car, then you'll be back and we can look at the fireplaces'... which is sensible in a sense, but it also means no ride today so UNLESS I get up now, right this minute and head out on the bike I won't be riding until tomorrow morning and then, as luck would have it, I'll probably discover that it's raining cats and dogs and that a ride is off the agenda for another week.What is wrong with me? It's a question I often ask, but a question I doubt will be answered because, like everything else, I simply never get round to anything. Ah! One more thing I'm losing, slowly but surely is writing this blog. I used to be as regular as clockwork, once a week, sometimes more, but the last time I "put pen to paper" was 12 October and that was ages ago. I used to hate arriving on somebody's blog page only to discover that they hadn't written anything for years and now, here I am, doing the same thing, give or take. And there's no use saying "just do it, just get out there, act, do something, don't just sit around" here I am doing just that. This morning I haven't even checked the weather, but I get the sneaky suspicion that rain will be on the agenda and that will put me off going. Look, I'd better go, I'm going to try to get out of the house within the next 30 minutes. I'll report back later on my progress.Actually, before I go, something else that has simply stopped is walking. I just don't walk anywhere anymore, preferring instead to sit in a cafe eating something unhealthy. I've noticed that everything in cafes these days involves cheese. There's a cafe in Sevenoaks (Sopranos) where virtually every dish involves cheese, and I've stopped going to my healthy cafe because the prices are extortionate and now I'm eating in a place called Poppins opposite McDonalds where, the last two times I was there, I 'enjoyed' a chicken with mayonnaise baguette and a couple of mugs of tea followed on both occasions with a toasted teacake. Anyway, things must change, I need to kick myself into gear and do stuff, although that's just it, things won't change, I won't kick myself into gear and everything will remain the same.