Hello 2012

New Year's Eve already, wow, that came around fast.

For the record, I HATE New Year's Eve. I just feel like there's far too much expectation and it never lives up to it, plus taxis are hideously expensive, and you have to pay it because you can't walk very far in killer heels. So I am staying in, I'm going to eat chinese and chocolate (although not together, thankfully), and I'm going to do some serious internet research on finding my way in this hideously complicated, and up to now, unfulfilling world.

I'm 30 year next year. Tomorrow I will have to say "I'm 30 in July", because it won't be 'next year' anymore. That is bloody scary. Reality check. Time for Nicky to get off her arse, stop procrastinating and actually DO something. I will say what I want to do is not as simple as jumping on a plane, it's not the first time this week I've had to say that either, because stupid little old me got herself landed with a nice loan for the next three years. But there has to be a way, right? And this evening's festivities involve me finding said way. And find it I will, because by god I need a distraction, and fast.

2011 has been strange. I can't say it's been a great year to be honest, it's been full of upheaval and worry, but it's also had it's major high points. I guess the best way to describe it is a year of high highs and low lows. It's taught me a lot of lessons. It's also taught me that love is a bloody painful thing and it might be best if in future I just don't bother with it. Either that or check into a nunnery, although I believe we've investigated this idea before and decided the uniform isn't flattering enough. However, if I have to hear Adele's 'Someone Like You' once more, I may decide sod the uniform and hot-foot it there sharpish.

In my last blog, I poured out my little heart about my current situation that I like to call "dire". Yes, it is still dire. No, I haven't heard anything. Yes, I'm stressed. BUT, but I have done something proactive. I've laid it on the line and I'm prepared to have to walk away. In fact, I may already have one foot out of the door, because I know how this is going to end if I'm honest. So I guess that's progress. It's hellish if I'm honest, I've been thinking of next year in Marmaris and the thought of not seeing him makes me come over all strange, I've told my friend she will have to literally handcuff herself to me, just to stop me ambling my way down there. But I won't go. Because if it's over, it's done with forever.

It's just really sad.

But that's life I guess.

Anyway, 2012. I figure if I'm going to distract myself with anything, then it might as well be something useful and constructive, and my future is a pretty constructive thing to start with.

The last set of commandments I made didn't work so well, they're pretty much what landed me in this situation, so these ones are going to be easier to achieve:

1. Finish my book. At the moment that isn't an easy thing to do, because of the subject matter, but I guess I'll get over it, it might even be therapy.

2. Learn Turkish, at least a basic grasp. And no, I dont mean just swear better.

3. Don't spend money on random crap, because it really would help if everytime I paid something off my credit card, I didn't add to it again.

4. Catch up with those friends I neglected this year by being far too involved with matters of the heart.

5. If I find a way to move to the place that shall not be named, then I will DO IT, and I won't pussyfoot around trying to figure out if it's what I really want after all, because it is.

6. Be more positive.

7. Visit one place at least that isn't inside Turkey. This may need the help of Miss Vanja Holm .....

8. But get my backside out of the country as much as possible and live a little. This will probably mean that the visa guys at Dalaman airport will be seeing quite a lot of me over the next 12 months.

And that's it. Eight resolutions. How many of these will I keep?

I don't think they're impossible, not like that last lot, they were made for breaking, and I won't lie, I had a lot of fun breaking them.

So Happy New Year to you all, I hope the next 12 months bring you everything you wish for, and I hope you stick to your resolutions for longer than a week. Now I'm off to watch hideous New Year's Eve TV, how many 100 greatest moment shows can they find?!

Dear Santa

It's the most wonderful time of the year ....

Is it really?

Okay, I'm not a total scrooge where Christmas is concerned, and to be honest, it's only really this year I've gone all bah humbug to this degree, but it seems to have been going on since the end of September. There is such a thing as over-kill. I like sparkly lights and crackers as much as the next person, but summer seems to have merged into the most expensive time of the year without much of a break inbetween.

I'll put out a bit of a statement for shock value here - I've never been in a relationship at Christmas. I choose to see the positives in this, no present buying, no having to spend Christmas dinner in two different locations, no having to put on a pretend smile when the potential in-laws buy you a hideous top you wouldn't even wear to a fancy dress party. Of course there are down sides also, it's a warm, snuggly, coupled up time of year, and I spend it snuggled up to my Jack Russell - which is fine, because let's face it, he's a hell of a lot more reliable and will never let me down. I can also sit and scoff an entire tub of Celebrations without anyone shaking their head at me and looking disapproving. I don't care that I won't fit into my jeans on 1 January, nobody else will either - that's what January's there for, hardcore dieting and never leaving the house after you get in from work. It's such a happy, joyful month, don't you think?

I know I'm not really giving off the right kind of vibes to agree with this, but I do like Christmas really, I like food, I like presents and I like chocolate very much. What I hate with a total and utter passion is New Year. New Year swiftly follows Christmas, and I have an impending feeling of doom from Boxing Day.

Whilst Christmas might be a potential snuggled up couple time, New Year most definitely is, and a time of looking at what you haven't got, or didn't do in the previous year that you swore you would. I get depressed on  New Year's eve, so I often don't go out, but then I feel like I should be out and I get even more fed up, so just try to pretend it's a normal day and that those fireworks at midnight are just coincidence and the fact my phone won't stop bleeping from 11.30pm onwards is just because I'm popular for one hour in the year.

I'd like to go away for New Year, and one of these years I will do, when flight prices decide not to be through the roof and I win the lottery. Sydney would be good, I'd like to see the fireworks over the harbour bridge, maybe Times Square in New York. Istanbul maybe? I'll decide on that one when I've been and I decide whether I like it or not. But really, I'd settle for sitting on a beach with friends at New Year, not shivering my arse off with about ten blankets and having to endure whatever hellish rammel they've stuck on the BBC to 'entertain' us saddos that can't be bothered to go out.

So this time I've decided that I won't make any resolutions, because basically I never keep them, oh actually, I did keep one once, although it wasn't really a resolution, more of a decision; about ten years ago I promised I would pluck my eyebrows every weekend. I've kept to that one. Basically because if I didn't then lord knows what I'd look like.

No, this year I'm just going to say that 2012 will be about me working towards where I want to be. Hopefully I might fast track myself there if some things in the pipeline work out, but we'll have to see with that. If not, then I will save my arse off and put things in place - because I have decided once and for all that in three years' time, when the evil, evil loan is paid off, I am packing up and moving to the sun for good.

I have asked Santa for one this year - it's probably not going to happen but if anyone can do it, Santa can, right? I have asked him to sort out the tangled mess that is my heart, and hopefully knock some sense into the one that's making it tangled. It would be a Christmas miracle on a scale nearing the first one, but hey, that's what Christmas is about, right? Hope and all that.

So Santa, you lovely, red-suited, bearded dude, come on, I've been a good girl, honest I have ....