This last year has been a significant one. Perhaps the biggest thing for me, and for my family, is we haven’t had any major DIY projects. Sure there’s been a few bit done, but nothing involving time off work or rooms out of action. It’s the first year since we got married that I can say that.

My son started school, and he’s been loving it. That’s been a big adjustment for the family. No more freedom to choose when we go on holiday. He has settled into school life well. Our daughter has missed him but is also learning to find her own way when he’s not around. My wife has also found it hard not having him around, but her life is a little easier because she only has one child to look after for 6 hours of the day.

It’s been a unique year at work as well. We moved out of an old building into a new one. A massive project unlike any we’ve had before, or will probably have again. We are finally Cyber Essentials certified. After years of talking about it, we actually got it! Our dev team has just about doubled in size, with no increase on the ops side, which has meant a lot more work supporting them.

With the lack of DIY to focus on, I found myself with free time, which I’ve spent learning game development in Godot. Its early days still, but I am enjoying a new challenge. I have done programming before, but nothing quite like this. There is a lot of maths that I just don’t understand at all. I’m excited to get into making some pixel art next year.

After a year or so break, I’m back at the D&D table. This time it’s actually a real table as well. Playing a wizard call Arthur, who’s the old man of the party. He isn’t worldly wise as he’s spent his entire life studying. After finding an unusual book, he’s been drawn out into the real world to uncover its secrets. We are only a few sessions into the campaign, but I’m enjoying playing a more complex class that doesn’t just shoot or hit things.

I’m not a big reader at all, but I did read some books this year. Most notably, I finished reading the Narnia series to William. It was my first time reading them as well, which is perhaps surprising for someone who’s a fantasy fan. I enjoyed them thoroughly but felt the ending was a bit of a letdown. Game of thrones book one was the first book I read this year. It’s not for me. Too many stories going on at the same time, too dark. I reread the first two King Killer chronicle books, probably my fourth read of these - I still hold out hope for book three being released! The Rithmatist was the first Brandon Sanderson book that I didn’t actually enjoy. I restarted Harry Potter with books one and two; I want to continue the series again next year. I’m just over half way through book one of the wheel of time, I’ve found it a struggle to get into, at this point I’m not sure I’ll continue the series. I also started but didn’t finish the Invisible Library. It’s a cool concept but again maybe just not for me, but I might give it another chance.

With the shutdown of Stadia, I find myself not doing much gaming at all this year. Though I enjoyed revisiting Stardew Valley for a bit. I played some more Witcher 3 on GeForce Now and tried out Xbox cloud a bit. Stadia was a great service. It lacked the games, needed to really do well. I’ve been preferring to focus on learning how to do game development myself these last few months, rather than play other people’s games.

As I look ahead to 2023, our daughter will be going to school in September, which will free up a lot of time for my wife. She wants to be an artist and is already selling some of her work. As she gets more time to focus on this, we really hope she can make some additional income. Having spent this last year not doing DIY, I’m hopeful that we can make our workshop a bit more comfortable in the winter months by adding some insulation and heating. This will be really key for my wife as she starts doing her art work more regularly down there. For me, I’m happy where I am. I continue to find work interesting and challenging. Financially, things are getting tough everywhere for everyone, and in the workplace as well, which is going to bring further challenges. I am thankful for all that I have and all that I’ve achieved this last year.