I’m not saying things are perfect, but if I don’t do it this year who knows when I’ll next get to (See footnote). This year started off just as shit as last year, then got even worse, then was ok again, then was AMAZING and then settled to good.

I’m just sulking a bit really having had that brief glance of a stress free life and haven’t come to terms with that it is a LOT LOT better than last year, but can’t be as good as I glimpsed.

Push

Almost did this and then stopped cycling altogether. Meant to have a few months off, but it’s now looking like it’ll be a year since I can afford to be a fair weather cyclist; it might actually be over FOREVER if I think of it in terms of actually affording it: I spent about £65 on a pair of running shoes when I decided to have a break from cycling and they are easily going to last me a year. I just can’t see me being allowed to spend the money I need to on my bicycle for what will now be a “hobby” seeing as how incredibly tight my budget was when I was arguably cycling for (to) a living.

On the running front I achieved what I wanted to do: Learnt to run 5k without crippling myself and then ran 10k. Unsure next year whether to work on running further or faster.

Program

I started the year off as a good open-source maintainer on Oysttyer and Simplenote.vim/py and ended the year as a bad maintainer. It’s utterly bizarre that I used to write more code when I didn’t work in software/technology; There has been a tonne of stuff to learn though.

On that note though: finally! Officially; I do feel as though those years of tinkering have paid off.

Part of the reason for my drop off in maintainership (I’m not intending it to be permanent) is that when I did find time for personal projects in the latter half of this year I decided to be selfish and spent time getting to grips (ish) with Haskell again and got this little project working again - it ain’t pretty, but I am happy I managed to get it going again.

Picture

For the first time in six years managed to shoot a roll of film and get it developed in the same calendar year. Amazing. True.

Spent so long not doing it though that I don’t feel back in the swing of it yet.

Prose

(I’ve actually thought about wrangling further Ps into my website instead of using owtelse. Can’t quite bring myself to do it though).

The youngest is still out reading me, by far, by volume, but I made a good effort this year to catch up on a backlog of classics and modern-classics from my list:

  • Anna Karenina
  • Mrs. Dalloway
  • A Room of One’s Own
  • Wuthering Heights
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • The Waves
  • A Modern Mephistopheles
  • Northanger Abbey (almost finished this)

Quite a few Virginia Woolf books - I like her; I already have another lined up for the start of next year.

Phonographic

In a year that saw LOADS of famous musicians pass away there was also a huge amount of great music released. This year I have very much enjoyed:

  • Gurr - Moby Dick
  • Honeyblood - Ready for the Magic
  • tc - Hold On Mind blowingly good
  • DBFC - Autonomic
  • Slaves - Fit but you know it (Streets cover) Not on the album, but good all the same
  • Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve - Creation
  • All Tvvins - Darkest Ocean
  • De La Soul - Royalty Capes
  • Kate Tempest - Don’t fall in
  • M83 - Go!
  • Boxed In - Jist
  • Ladyhawke - Wild things
  • Friction - DARE (Hold it down)
  • Primal Scream - 100% Or Nothing

I’ve picked just one song from each, but I liked more. Gurr’s was my album of the year.

Plans

After this year (and actually every year since I graduated thinking I knew what I wanted to do) I have given up making plans. I am just along for the ride. 99% of life is down to luck. You can make yourself feel better and work-hard (should that suit your mentality, like mine) and believe that the last 1% is having an influence, but it isn’t really. So no plans beyond carrying on listening to music, going running, reading, taking photos, learning - a lot of learning.

And that’s it. I wonder if I’ll be writing one of these next year? The last time I felt things were positive enough to warrant an end of year review was for the year 2010.

[EDIT: 2017-01-14] Did this come off sounding more negative than I meant? The fact that I even wrote it shows how good things are. Also: I no longer have to eat porridge made with water everyday! How did I forget to add that! That alone is a great thing.