6 New Year’s resolutions you can keep in Aberdeen
5 January 2015
Setting new year resolutions doesn't have to be a chore. Here are 6 you can keep in Aberdeen.
1) Go on a diet (and enjoy it)
You know how it goes; overindulge during the holidays and feel guilty for the rest of the year, dreading the propsect of planning (and sticking to) a schedule of bland and uninspiring meals. But changing your eating habits in the new year doesn’t have to be boring and hard work, especially if you're lucky enough to live in or be visiting Aberdeen. Seek some inspiration for your new diet from these great ‘foodie’ cafés and restaurants around the city.
Café 52 – The Green – Situated in the heart of Aberdeen in an area previously largely forgotten, Café 52 has comfy seating indoors and out and offers a variety of options using healthy and fresh local ingredients.
Sand Dollar Café, Esplanade – is a superior seaside café offering chilled white wine and a tempting, guilt-free menu for your new diet. The café holds regular jazz nights with the next ones on 23rd January and 27th February 2015.
Musa Art Café – Art, music and fine food under one roof. Set in a former church, food here is described as quirky and eclectic and aspires to be anything but mundane. Live music at the weekend, Open Mic nights on Mondays, you will find them on YouTube. Bi-monthly art exhibition aims to particularly feature artists whose work mirrors Musa’s “quirky character and blatant disregard for convention”. A visit to Musa is an altogether quite different experience.
2) Learn to cook
2015 is the year you learn to cook or learn to cook more adventurously and Aberdeen is lucky enough to be home to a cooking school run by a famous chef. So, take the plunge and develop your culinary skills.
Nick Nairn’s Cook School – 2-hour Quick Cook sessions! Take a cooking class at the famous chef’s own cooking school – lots of fun to be had, tips to be gathered and enjoy the fruits of your labours along with a glass of wine at the end of the class with your fellow cooks.
3) Take up a new sport or learn a new skill
There’s no better time than a new year to take up a new sport or to learn a new skill – try your hand at Golf at the Locker Room, take the plunge at Aberdeen Sports Village, scale the heights at Transition Extreme’s climbing wall, glide across the ice at Linx Ice Arena. Or if sports are not your thing, try a creative workshop at Peacock Visual Arts.
Aberdeen Sports Village is a ‘one-stop- shop’ for fitness with fitness suite, indoor and outdoor pitches, squash courts, pool, sauna, steam room and studios with a range of classes.
Award-winning Transition Extreme has superb climbing, skateboarding, BMX, inline skating and a high ropes course and a host of instructors to help you get to grips with your new adrenaline high choice.
Glide across the ice at Linx Ice Arena or take up the fast-moving sport of ice hockey. With classes in both and regular sessions to learn and practise your skills, Linx Ice Arena caters to your every need in ice sport.
More arty than sporty? Indulge your artistic bent at Peacock Visual Arts where there are printmaking, screenprinting, relief printing and etching workshops. Local young people are trained in digital media at Peacock Visual Arts and the Centre is home to the internet tv station 360tv.
4) Get out more!
Enjoy life a bit more by going to the theatre or seeing a film. The newly reopened Tivoli Theatre is a Grade A Listed Building undergoing major restoration. Following several successful new productions, the Tivoli looks forward to a bright, new year with the intriguingly titled ‘Robert Burns the Musical’ on the 25th January 2015, ‘The Addams Family’ from 31st March and Attic Theatre’s ‘Dick Whittington and His Cat’ starting its run on the 5th December 2015 to follow the sell-out success of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in 2014.
See cult classics, director’s seasons and foreign films at the city’s art-house cinema, the Belmont Filmhouse. Offering mainstream films too, the Belmont also has comfortable seating, a café and bar.
5) Go back to school
Interested in the Natural World? Museums are great places to explore – see the stuffed Bengal Tiger and the huge skeletons at the Zoology Museum. Or, if you’re more interested in your own family’s history, you can explore your roots at the Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society Centre.
The Zoology Museum and the Natural History Museum house intriguing displays of bones, including Blue Whale limbs, taxidermy and unusual things in glass jars. For an even more exciting visit, don’t miss their themed ‘Night at the Museum’ annual event in May.
Who are you? Where do you come from? Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society Centre can help you answer these questions. You can do your own research or commission staff to do it for you. Or you can attend one of their talks on a myriad of interesting subjects.
6) Learn to garden
This year is the time to finally tackle that garden you’ve been meaning to get into for ages. Inspiration is everywhere in Aberdeen, here are a couple of places you can visit to glean some ideas:
Johnston Gardens – a winner of the ‘Britain in Bloom’ competition many times, Johnston Gardens is an oasis of streams, waterfalls, ponds, rockeries and a rustic bridge. Loved by a variety of types of duck, Aylesbury, Mallard, Muscovy, Mandarin and Wood Ducks have all been seen here.
Cruickshank Botanic Garden, pictured above, is an 11 acre set up to encourage us to fully appreciate nature and the role of plants in it. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place to relax and be ‘at one with the world’. Inspiration from shrub borders, rockeries, a water garden, an arboretum and even a sunken garden. Open Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm and is free to visit.
All information is correct at the time of publishing, we recommend that you check opening times and information for individual places before visiting.