Another year, huh?

Another year I’ll be glad to see the back of to be totally honest, and another year of blogging, despite the fact it’s now deeply unfashionable and no-one does it any more.

This year has featured no human deaths in immediate family, but one feline as my nephew cat Salem went missing, presumed dead. His brother Soup remains with us, and my two remain healthy despite dental issues in the last year. Our own health and that of friends and family presents challenges, as does life in general, but we’re still here, and we have achieved things.

Surviving, for a start, but also (for my other half) reaching a huge achievement that I might get round to mentioning here at some point, but I’ll be consulting her first.

There have been other positives: friends, family, and cats, mostly, but we’ve also finally done some house refurbishment which will continue into 2026.

Work continues to be OK, and this year we’ve made huge leaps forward with some very old infrastructure headed for the skip as we drag things into this decade.

The country is still fucked, of course. The current Labour government have been slowly improving some things: some public services have improved, for instance, but to me it seems that they’re just not different enough from the others, but this is probably an attempt to appeal to the racists and avoid losing votes to Reform. Thankfully, of course, [sarcasm]the great British public could never get sucked in to vote for something so utterly broken as Reform[/sarcasm].

2025- off you fuck, and good riddance, mostly.
2026- *[sigh]* Whatever.

We’re in the closing hours of 2025, and I’m sat with a cat snoozing by the radiator, and a wife snoozing on the sofa, so things could be worse.

Very slight uptick on the song front this year: The Birthday Massacre’s Last Goodbye is still not cheery, but maybe wistfully slightly positive, and a bit poppy:

There’s a place we can find with no direction
Every choice is stitched in the pattern we sew in time
From the start to the end, we define between
In the nothing, there is something we can never see
There’s a place we can go if you just stay close to me

It’s Christmas morning. I’m sat with headphones (because my bluetooth speaker seems to have died, and firing up the AV system is inconsiderate when one’s other half is in bed) playing From Spirits and Ghosts.

Work finished on Dec 23, happily with me working at home that day after a very busy few months, but Christmas Eve was busy: turkey collection (as normal, by 8am), dropping cards with one family branch, and then assisting in sorting out a family member who had a hastily-arranged move of care home (more of this another time, perhaps), followed by a good friend visiting to exchange gifts, then the traditional curry and Muppet Christmas Carol.

I’m now sitting watching the light levels increase (thank $deity, we made it past another shortest day) while the cats snooze or batter each other, alternating as they see fit. We’ll be seeing more family later, with yet another variation on cooking Christmas dinner: I am in charge of turkey and bits of pig, my wonderful nibling is in charge of other bits. I’m finally feeling a little festive.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

It all started, some time ago, with a unpleasant snap as I sat down.

Our sofa was last replaced when I had hair, in the last century- about 1998, to be more precise.

My better half offered the opinion that we needed a new one. I didn’t disagree, but I was resistant to put a new sofa into a room last decorated and carpeted in 2011.

As it was, that didn’t work out. We ordered a new sofa in February, and it arrived in June, but we hadn’t got as far as that room in the long, expensive, and difficult sequence of events starting in March, triggered by this.

That room that was decorated in 2011 was the last room we decorated, the kitchen units were falling apart (being the shitty ones that were fitted before we bought the house in the early nineties), and the bathroom was last touched in 2006, the dining room in 2004. You get the picture, things got in the way.

At time of writing, we’re part-way through. The hall has had floor tiles and been painted, we have a new kitchen and shower room with new tiled floor, one bedroom, the stairs and landing have been carpeted and painted, along with the lounge with the new sofa.

Even with the huge cost of doing this (we’ve paid someone for much of the work because it’s too much for us these days) there’s been a good amount of DIY: replacing an electrical back box and socket, lots of filling, SDS chiselling old floor tiles (and some plaster in the cellar), fitting new blinds, assembling furniture, lamps etc etc etc. We’ve had help from friends with some bits which has been much appreciated.

It’s a good way through now, but there’s still the rear lobby area (and a new back door), the dining room, and the back bedroom to do.