Tag: Annual Review

End of the Year 2023

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, books, Dog, Film, Garden / Allotment, Life, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work, writing2 Comments

I couldn’t decide whether I was going to sit and write one of these this year or not. I’ve done something like this most years but the latter part of this year I’ve not been really feeling the desire to blog or write my newsletter or even be on the socials much. Some of this is because in the case of the site formerly known as twitter it’s pretty much a horror story these days and unless you’re paying for your account you’re unlikely to show up in anyone’s feed, so why bother. Most of it though is because I’ve just not felt much in the way of creative energy to write, I pushed through AudioMo because I do genuinely enjoy it but the energy just hasn’t been there since April when we lost Wilson.

He was 13 and hadn’t been well for a number of years, one thing on top of another was finally too much and when he stopped eating and drinking it was obvious. I try and remember the good times, but I miss him terribly and genuinely struggle some days.

I am hoping that I will be writing more in 2024, and probably here rather than anywhere else. I think that perhaps my newsletter has run its course, and I have more control over what happens here than anywhere else. I’ve heard some people talk of a resurgence in blogging since the demise of twitter, I’m not sure if that is likely to be true or not but I’d rather set out my shingle here than anywhere else.

So what else has been happening in 2023? Let’s see shall we?

Books
I’ve read a lot this year, at last count 109 112 books, more than I’ve ever read in any year previously that I’ve got a detailed record for. You can check them all out on GoodReads here. I’ve been continuing to read some old favourite series such as Simenon’s Maigret novels and discovering some newer ones too. I also finally managed to read all of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” probably ten years after it came out and I bought it in paperback. I actually enjoyed it too and have been enjoying a bit of a King renaissance this year, which I’ll probably continue next year, along with a couple of other authors. A couple of stand-outs for me though were some of the most troubling books that I read. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and “Berlin Diaries” by William L Shirer. I wanted to read the former with a view to seeing if what happened 80 – 90 years ago bears any resemblance to what is happening in the world now, and in particular is reflected in some of the politics of this country. Whilst what happened then might be remembered as being some extremes of humanity, it didn’t necessarily start that way and I think we would be well advised to remember the times before the world was at war and what was happening. It’s a slippery slope and there are certainly examples of gaslighting and lying and reinforcing those lies in our modern political discourse that are exactly the early behaviours seen then.

We can and should be better than that and as nations and governments are too good at ignoring the facts because they do not fit the narrative that we want to tell, rather than being honest about them.

Watching
I haven’t watched much of anything this year, hence why I’ve had so much reading time. I did enjoy the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon but other than that I haven’t watched much. There are several things that I would like to see, the new seasons of Foundation and Slow Horses on Apple TV+ but we stopped our subscription to those as we weren’t watching. I also have a stack of things recorded that I should try to watch or delete if I’m not going to. I was planning on doing some of this over the Christmas break but I haven’t managed it yet.

Work
This year started slow, but picked up a lot of pace in the latter half of the year. Overall I’d say it’s been a successful year for me. Some old clients and some new ones, and some interesting projects that blurred the lines a little between work and personal projects (in a good way).

Gardening
There is always more I could have done this year in the garden, but I think I’d say that I’ve pretty much hit the minimum targets that I had and a few additional things. Next year I am hoping to devote more time to the garden generally and now we’ve seen it through a full year that means we have a better idea of some the things that we want to achieve next year.

Outside
I’m still walking between 5 and 6 miles most days (a bit less when it’s raining hard) and it’s a delight, it has helped to keep me balanced mentally and physically and it is not something that I am planning to pull back from next year. I’ve kept notes pretty much everyday of the things I’ve seen and heard and want to double down on that particularly next year.

To 2024
As I said at the outset I hope to be more present here in 2024, but please don’t hold me to that, I need a certain amount of mental space to be able to write these posts and ones similar to those I have before and during a good chunk of 2023 I just didn’t have it. There are a couple of big changes that happened at the beginning of December however that were bigs things for me to have removed from my life and I hope that now gives me the mental space and more importantly the time to be able to get back to writing more.

Goals

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review

Each year about this time I sit down and look at the goals and targets I want to set myself for next year.

I start with a final reviewof the previous (current) year and a look back over the last five or so years. The last couple have been heavily disrupted by Covid but I’ve been pretty successful in meeting my targets, which makes me feel I should have been a bit more ambitious.

Next years will be, although perhaps again coloured by some uncertainty around Covid. These cover work and personal goals, although admittedly there is crossover between the two.

Do you do something similar?

The Weeks That Were 2020

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review1 Comment

I normally write an end of the year post, with a bit of a look into the abyss that is the year to come.

if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee

Nietzsche

What a year it’s been, the recurring theme of a global pandemic has meant that much of what I might “normally” do has kind of been thrown into a cocked hat. But let’s give this review a go, and try and have a look towards 2021.

Reading.
I started out this year thinking that I wouldn’t read many books, thinking that I would be busy with work and wanted to concentrate on that. That held true for the first couple of months and then we went into lockdown. Again I didn’t read very much initially, my head being in a space that wasn’t conducive to much turning of pages, but as the year progressed I was drawn back to my love of reading and consumed book after book. At last count I’d read over 90 of them, and will probably get through at least one more before the year is out. Given the number of new ones that I was gifted for Christmas I have plenty to keep me going for the early part of 2021 too.

I’ve realised however that I don’t want to be driven by a target any more. I use GoodReads to track my reading and I will probably continue to do so, but for 2021 I’m setting the target to one. That way there’s no pressure and it doesn’t matter where I end up.

Trying to pick some favourites is difficult but there are some standout authors: Georges Simenon, Ellis Peters, Colin Dexter, Mick Herron; to name a few of them who I’ve gone back to repeatedly through the year.

I’ve also been consuming a lot of newsletters, my recommendations for you: Documentally, Pandemic Kitchen, Commonplace, David Charles and Austin Kleon.

Watching.
I saw my only film in the cinema in January, the final Star Wars film of the recent series. I’m not a great cinema goer but I had planned to see at least one more film (probably the new Bond film). So the pandemic put pay to that too.

So did we start watching a lot more on streaming services? No not really, in fact I’d say that we’ve watched a lot more repeats and reruns of older series and films than before. A lot of “Talking Pictures TV” for old series such as Hannay, Quatermass, Dick Barton: Special Agent and many other things.

We enjoyed the new series of Ghosts, alongside watching repeats of The Detectorists. Also series such as Inspector Morse, Inspector Montalbano, and The Wave.

Not sure where 2021 will take us, maybe back to the cinema in the latter part of the year? Who knows.

Listening.
I’ve spent a lot of hours in podcasts of all sorts. I’d particularly recommend: We Have Ways of Making You Talk, The Tim Ferris Show, Field Recordings, Coastal Stories, and 1857. A few other of my regulars have stopped recording, hopefully only temporarily and there’ll be back in 2021 along with my mainstays.

Working.
The year of Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, Google Chat, Facetime etc. Working from home is nothing new for me, I’ve been doing it full time for the last five years, but now so is everyone else. It’s been a bumpy year. 12 months ago I was breaking my usual rule and working between Christmas and New Year to complete some work for a client as it was needed early in the New Year. There were some other delays on that project which meant that timings were pushed back and then the pandemic hit and it got kicked into the long grass. Just recently it’s picked up again, but I’m not sure whether that is still on the revised timetable anymore either.

I managed to give one allotment talk in person in January but the rest were all cancelled, I did give one by Zoom, but that’s it, it seems the average age profile of my audience don’t do Zoom. All my talks for the first half of 2021 have similarly been cancelled. Not sure whether I’ll be in a position to deliver those booked for the second half of the year or not but I’m hopeful that I can. I can’t help thinking it will feel a bit odd stepping out in front of a live audience again.

I normally set an income target for my business, I’ve missed that for 2020 by some margin, I’m not eligible for any government support (long story) and so, like my book reading there’s not going to be a target for 2021.

Allotment.
All I will say that through 2020 this has been my happy place. I hope that will continue into 2021. I still have lots to do to get the plot ready for the new season but I still look forward to it.

Other Stuff.
At the start of this year, I was intending to get back into film photography and although I’ve not quite managed to do everything that I’d planned I have managed to spend a lot more time behind a camera than I might otherwise. I’ve been supported by a generous friend who gave me two of his old film cameras and I’ve enjoyed experimenting, trying new types of film and all sorts of other things. I’m intending to keep this going in 2021 and in general trying to explore my creative side more. Not sure what that actually means; but probably more photography, more growing, more cooking, more writing. Watch this space.

Probably the hardest thing that I’ve had to deal with this year is my Mum’s Alzheimer’s and the gradual decline that it causes. We had a very different Christmas last year because of it and this year was different again. She’s now in a care home which has helped her and me. Although this has been affected by the pandemic, and the times that I’ve been able to see her greatly reduced, I think the overall outcome would have been the same.

That’s it. My 2020. It’s been a year hasn’t it! I’m not sure whether I’m going to resume my weekly Week That Was posts next week or at all, it feels like I need to mix that up a bit to, but then again…



I wish you all the very best for 2021 and hope that you stay safe and well.