Gum on My Shoe

I used to spend hours with my diary each December reviewing the year that was coming to a close. I’d recall favourite moments, examine things that hadn’t gone so well, and summarise my key relationships and friendships. I still write a daily journal, but I’ve not done that kind of end of year review since I posted my 2016 retrospective here on our blog. For a few years, I shared a “things I’d quite like to do” blog post in January, with a review at the end of the year. If you’re interested, you can check how I got on with the Six Things I’d Quite Like to Do in 2017 , the Seven Things I’d Quite Like to Do in 2018 , and the Six Things I’d Quite Like to Do in 2019 . Any plans I might have had for 2020 were overtaken by events. That December, I shared one photo and one blog post for each month of a year that no one could have predicted . I did the same thing at the end of 2021 and at the end of 2022 . Continuing the tradition, here’s my personal look back at 2023 in photos and bl...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities In a recent blog post I discussed how people have different ideas about the most appropriate time to do things. This led me to ponder how people keep track of time. Specifically, how I keep track of what’s going on in my life and the things that have happened to me. As we approach the close of the year, I thought it would be interesting to review some of the time management methods I’ve employed over the course of my lifetime. This post was further inspired by me buying — and almost immediately regretting buying — yet another Filofax planner. More on that later! Personal Diary Regular readers will know that I’ve kept a daily diary since I was fourteen ...

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present. — Attributed to Alice Morse Earle This piece was inspired by a conversation with Fran about when’s the right time to open Christmas presents. I sent Fran’s gifts early this year, and she wanted to open them as soon as they arrived. We had a fun time on our video call that evening, each in our matching Santa hats. It was November 27. The fact that I was okay with this shows how much I’ve grown since we first became friends in 2011. In those early years, it was important to me that we open our gifts together at the same time, ideally on Christmas Eve. I guess I’m attached to the idea of there being a proper time to do things. I buy and wrap gifts in plenty of time — not least because many will be mailed to various locations in the UK and beyond — but the tree and other decorations should go up no earlier than the middle of December. I stock up in advance on festive fayre — mince pi...

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