Another end of year summary post started early, edited at the time. It’s now 21 years of this rubbish!

As I’m starting this we’re approaching Christmas 2024, and I’m not feeling festive yet.

2024 has been another year I’ll be glad to see the back of overall, but let’s try to remain objective, eh?

So far (hurriedly crosses fingers and hopes to not need any edits) 2024 saw one human death, zero feline in extended family, one death of a greatly valued family friend (kind of sad to attend a funeral of a friend of your parents as the sole direct relative), and a couple of far-too-close calls.

Health issues persist, both for us and for family members and at least one very dear friend. You know who you are, should you read this. I suppose some of this is to be expected as we age, but it seems a disproportionate amount of friends and family are really quite ill.

It has been a stressful, tiring year for us both and for people around us, and I definitely haven’t been dealing with some of that as well as I could. Once again, I need to reflect and see that at least most of us are still here, we have a home, an income, and cats. There’s always cats.

My work, while sometimes very tedious, is overall, pretty good. If i could just eradicate Citrix from the planet, eh?

The country? It’s still fucked, but maybe a little less fucked. The Starmer government isn’t ideal, in many ways, but at least there’s a vague air of competence there (just about), and instead of a load of culture war bollocks, they’re actually governing, even if they could be so much better, by comparison, it’s sheer brilliance.

I’ve come to recognise that my warnings are not being heeded, so 2025? *sigh*. Just do whatever.

Song choice will be Tristania’s Requiem.

Now a second silence
Peace restored
If you lose the battle
Win the war