Year 4: Lads
Another year, another yearnote! 2024 was my fourth year of writing weeknotes and I’ve managed not to miss a week yet. Saying that, this yearnote is really late, we’re already nearly two months into 2025 😅 better late than never, eh?
The Lads
This year has been dominated by two new additions to our household: Tom Barnaby and Douglas Fir. 26 of my 52 weeknotes for the year are tagged with “kittens” and the year-in-thumbnails below is dominated by these two small lads.
Despite still not being sure if was ready after Tootsie, I’ve had the best time seeing these two grow up. I couldn’t have asked for two better-natured cats, I adore them.
We really didn’t intend on getting kittens, we were going to rescue again but our hunt coincided with a friend of Charlotte’s mum having an accidental litter. Two cats was also not the plan but they love hanging out and playing with each other - I’m so glad we took both of them.
Travel is now a little more complex and expensive as we need somebody to stop by and feed/play with them, but we haven’t run out of volunteers yet. You’ll note that we’ve done a lot less globetrotting this year, probably good for our carbon footprint.
Reading
I started reading fiction again back in 2023 but it didn’t stick. It was a different story in 2024, I read a total of 27 books which is probably more than the previous 5 years combined. I never had my nose out of a book as a kid and it’s nice to rediscover this passtime properly. There have been some crackers, my standouts were:
The Humans by Matt Haig is funny and heartwrenching and introduced me to the author. I’ve been inhaling his other books and highly recommend him.
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton is a really excellent murder mystery with some nice supernatural themes, it was gripping. I’d already read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle but this has cemented Stuart Turton as someone I’ll always read.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North has fun time-travel/time-loop elements and it’s really exciting.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is beautiful and I couldn’t put it down, the world really sucked me in and I finished it in just over a day. It’s one I wish I could read again without knowing the story.
You can see my full list in various notes in the “books” tag or on my Goodreads.
Later in the year I got a bit stuck on the third book in the Dune series. I probably overdid it and need to not be scared of pausing and picking up something else to keep it going. I intend on reading about the same amount in 2025, probably mostly in sci-fi and fantasy again - reading is definitely about escape for me.
Writing
Weeknotes have continued but they keep getting shorter. I only wrote ~15,000 words this year down from ~19,500. I’m writing them for myself so I’ve stopped pressuring myself to think of something interesting to go in; I’ve also stopped caring if there’s no photo which is why there are fewer thumbnails this year.
Blogging, both on this website and at work, has taken a back seat too. Meh, who cares? I’ll write about stuff if I feel the need to and I don’t think my ability to hit flow state has suffered.
Something I noticed part way through this year is that the Grammarly plugin in my text editor had stopped working. It’s possible that these are now more plagued with spelling/grammar errors. Again, I don’t much care. The thing I probably do miss is something telling me if I used the same word five times in rapid succession.
What’s happening in 2025?
After not really having much of a goal last year, I have a big one (for me) in 2025. I really need to start exercising again and improving my fitness, 40 is approaching and it’s only gonna get harder. I’m not sure what this looks like yet. I hate the gym very much but I guess I probably need to suck that up a little. Maybe I’ll start running again? Who knows, I’m just trying to hold myself accountable!
2025 might also include me deciding what I want the next step of my career to be. I know what it isn’t (management, stepping too far from production code) but I’m probably coasting just a little where I am at the moment. I’d still like to work at the FT, but I could maybe find some more challenging/broad work.
That’s it, that was 2024! Thanks for continuing to read these 🙂
