So for the first time in a few years, it's time for a post from the phone :-). Mainly because it's the end of the year and we're not actually going to be home till the new year! So here I am, sitting by a stunningly crackling log fire and a prettily lit Christmas tree, typing into my phone :-D.
We're back in the UK for the Christmas holidays. Which still feels like a bit of a special treat even a couple of years on from Covid. Although, by the sounds of it the no longer so novel coronavirus doesn't seem to be ready to head off quietly just yet. Luckily, barring the cold at the end of November, we've managed to avoid further respiratory drama.
It's been a relatively quiet holiday time this year. Which I've rather appreciated. It's true of most years, but feels particularly the case this time around, this feeling that the year has just rushed past. Spring feels at once hardly any time ago and at the same time so far away that I can hardly remember the details from our long awaited India trip.
The cross-country skiing was really good this year though! With some longer trips as the daylight hours got longer helping me feel like I was getting back to really stretching myself on the skiis rather than just trundling along :-). Which came in quite handy once we started cycling! The first downhill skiing weekend in many years also feels like a highlight worth mentioning. Maybe it'll be nice to do some more of that this time around.
I think in many ways one of the highlights of the year was the cycling! We managed to more or less consistently cycle throughout the snow-less months, all the way from April to October!! And out of the various cycling adventures, the most utterly crazy one was obviously the 400km North Sea cycle in May :-). A bit like the Hallingdal and Numedal cycle in 2020, it continues to feel a bit surreal that we actually managed to do it!
But the fact that we ended up cycling three times as much as we drove in the summer was less down to that one trip and more down to the fact that afterwards, we kept going out on the bikes almost every week, not least all the trips to and from work :-). Hopefully that's something I'll keep doing next year! It's a good feeling, the distance getting easier, finding a level of fitness I'd missed...
On the travel front it was a bit of a mixed bag, the most I've travelled for work in years, but also a fair bit to visit family and friends! India was a highlight, as were the weeks in Bath in the autumn and of course the trip to Jordan more recently.
No post these days is really complete without a little bit about the books :-). The Culture series, of course was a highlight, although most of that I read last year except for the last book. What followed, now that I look back, seems to have been a heady mix of book club books, graphic novels and Middle Earth! And genuinely, it's been really fantastic!
All the Brian K Vaughan stuff was slightly weird, but gripping, Monstress was definitely eye opening and fresh. And then Gaiman was, well, Gaiman :-). But the most fun I had immersing myself into books this year was reading Tolkien! Sometimes the old stuff is the best stuff!
On a more immediate note, I have actually started reading again. The book club book for this month, The Girl with the Louding Voice, was an interesting one. I had very little idea as to what to expect and I have to say, found it generally engaging. The writing is quite nice, particularly the evolving English as the story progresses. It will be interesting to see how the different members of the club made of the overall story.
I then decided to start on next month's book, one None of this is True, which is rather a different kettle of fish. I don't like thriller types that are trying to be oh so clever :-|. They annoy me. And I find myself trying to get through this one as quickly as I can so that I can return it to the library before the return date. Turns out someone else actually wants it, 'cos I can't actually extend the date any more...
The biggest deal of course was the new apartment! And it's properly official, now that we've got the keys and everything :-). Hopefully the moving will be as painless as everything else has been up to this point :-). I guess that one is definitely the beginning of a hopefully long journey.
So, as I often do in such situations, I went hunting for my post from when I got the keys for our old apartment (which is only old as a contrast to the new one at the moment, seeing how we haven't actually moved yet). I genuinely think, if someone had told me at that point that I'd live there for ten and a half years, I'd not have believed them! I mean, up until that point in my life, I'd never lived anywhere for that long at a stretch :-). Just goes to show, one really doesn't know what's around the next corner in life.
I guess that's as good a place as any to call it a day/month/year. Looking back and appreciating much of what has been, looking forward in hope for the things to come :-).
PS. This one also has a bright red door :-D.
