2025

2025, quantified

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For the third year running, I’m summarising all those end of year reviews that apps like Spotify and Goodreads offer you. You can take a look at 2024 and 2023 if you want.

Countries and counties visited

Unlike last year, I did manage to leave England a couple of times – Athens in June, and Wales in July. I also spent some time at Amsterdam Schipol Airport in the Netherlands, but as I was airside the whole time, I’m not really counting it.

Over the course of the year, I have spent at least some time in the following English counties:

  • West Yorkshire
  • North Yorkshire
  • South Yorkshire
  • East Yorkshire
  • Lincolnshire
  • Greater Manchester
  • Lancashire
  • Cheshire
  • Norfolk
  • County Durham
  • Merseyside
  • West Midlands
  • Oxfordshire
  • Northamptonshire
  • Staffordshire
  • Tyne & Wear

That’s a few more than last year – East Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and Tyne & Wear weren’t on last year’s list.

Most distant points

The furthest compass points I have been to are:

  • Furthest North: Gateshead, Tyne & Wear (May)
  • Furthest South: Athens, Greece (June)
  • Furthest East: Athens, Greece (June)
  • Furthest West: Anglesey Sea Zoo (July)

My trip to Athens was something of an outlier, but we also went further west than last year. Not so far north this time, though.

Methods of transport used

For the first time since doing this, I can include planes in this (Athens again). There was also a lot of driving, in our old and new cars, and I continued to mostly take the train to work. No trips to London last year, but I did travel by train to and from Manchester Airport, when heading to Athens, and to Leeds. Apart from those Manchester trips, which included time on Transpennine Express, all my journeys were with Northern. Speaking of which, I had 8 successful Delay Repay claims, totalling £6.25 (78p on average).

I’ve been on a few buses and trams as well. No ferries last year, but I did spend some time on a boat in Oxfordshire.

Music listened to

A screenshot of my most popular bands and songs from 2025 from Spotify Wrapped

Over the year, I scrobbled 15,063 tracks on last.fm, which is more than the past few years. That’s a little over 41 songs per day, so on average I listened to six additional songs per day in 2025 compared to 2024. Assuming an average song is around three minutes, I listened to slightly over two hours of music every day on average. My ‘listening age’ was 42 – only out by a year, which is nice.

Whilst I don’t exclusively listen to music on Spotify, on there, trance was my top genre this year (it was pop last year), according to my Spotify Wrapped. My most-listened to song was Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra – look, a song that was released in 2025 – as it’s one of our (now) ten-year-old’s favourites. Similarly zeitgeisty was my top album – the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters.

My top artist was Alex Christensen, which is a weird outlier; he released several albums of classical cover versions of dance music which I marathon-listened to one day. Last year’s top, Armin van Buuren, was second.

A screenshot of my Goodreads Year in Books

Books read and listened to

According to My Goodreads Year in Books for 2025, I read 76 books this year, which is one less than last year (and 17 fewer than 2023). Unfortunately, I set my 2025 reading challenge at 80 books, so didn’t achieve it. Also, books ‘read’ include those that I have listened to as audiobooks.

The shortest book I read, at 64 pages long, was ‘Our Super Japanese Adventure‘ by Sarah Graley and Stef Purenins (not available on Amazon), who we met at Thought Bubble. Meanwhile, the longest book was ‘Rule of Cool‘ (sponsored link) by Matthew Siege at 479 pages, although I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Felicia Day over 12 and a half hours. The longest audiobook was ‘Neurotribes‘ (sponsored link) by Steve Silberman, which was over 20 hours and probably the longest audiobook I’ve ever listened to, although the print edition is 477 pages (two less than the Rule of Cool)

Overall, the average length of book that I read was 270 pages, which is 39 more than 2024. ‘A Brief History of Time‘ by Prof Stephen Hawking (sponsored link) was the most popular book that I read last year. Although, I found it a struggle in parts and, unsurprisingly, some of the science has changed in the 37 years since it was first published.

Beers and ciders consumed

I log the beers and ciders that I drink using Untappd, and these stats are from my year in beer. Like last year, I drank less than one per month (11 in total) and my main style was ‘non-alcoholic’.

Steps taken

My total steps taken was very similar to 2024 and 2023. Overall I took 3,455,761 steps, which is only slightly less than 2024. My average is 9,468 per day; January was my most sedentary month and July was my most active, but not by much.

Time spent learning French

A screenshot of my Duolingo stats for 2025

I started Duolingo’s French course on the 1st January 2022 (so I have a four year streak now), and in 2025, I spent 3,560 minutes learning – that’s 59 hours in total. Compared to 2024, that’s 11 hours less, but we didn’t go to France again this year.

My Duolingo Score for French is 118, which means that I’m in the medium B2 level (‘vantage’) of the CEFR for French. Currently Duolingo’s maximum score for French is 130, which is high B2 level and should be sufficient to study a university course taught in French. I was expecting to have reached 130 by now, but clearly not.

Still, not much further to go. I’m probably going to switch to German next – I got an A* in GCSE German in 2000, but a quarter of a century has passed since then and I’ve forgotten most of it.

Podcasts listened to

A screenshot of my most listened to podcasts of 2025

I listen to the majority of my podcasts through Overcast (with the remainder in BBC Sounds). My most listened to podcast was, once again, RHLSTP (RHLSTP!) with 40 hours over the year. The Guilty Feminist, The Comedian’s Comedian, The Bugle and a new entrant, Bugle spin-off podcast, Realms Unknown, make up the rest of my top 5.

Photos taken

A new stat that I tracked in 2024 was an estimate of photos taken, although it will also include some screenshots as well. In 2025, I took 1536 photos, so less than 2024 but more than 2023.

So, that’s 2025 quantified, and a useful summary of the statistics from various web services that seem to spend their December telling me data they hold about me but in a nice way.

2025: a year in review

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A photo of some large illuminated letters spelling out 'Bradford 2025' in green, outside Bradford City Hall

It’s New Year’s Eve, and so, as per usual, I review the things I’ve done and written about over the course of the year just gone. You can read my previous posts from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

January

2025 got off to a slow start, not least because of heavy snow that was around for over a week. Our nine-year-old had two days off due to the school being closed, which saw me take short-notice annual leave. January was also the start of Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture, and so I wrote about that.

It was my 23rd blogiversary, and also two years since we had our solar panels installed. I also wrote a long post about how I’m probably neurodivergent, and whether we could take our house off-grid (short answer: no, apart from for gas).

January also had its goodbyes and hellos. We went to a funeral for a family member, but also re-connected with relatives who we haven’t been on speaking terms for some time, which was nice.

A photo of the outside of Magna Science Adventure Centre

February

February is LGBTQ+ History Month, and I hosted a webinar on the A-Z of LGBTQ+ through work. I think one of my personal achievements of 2025 was teaching the leader of Bradford Council what ‘deadnaming‘ is.

Whilst January was short of days out, in February we went to Magna near Rotherham, and also went to see the Dogman film at the cinema. I also wrote about a crowdfunder for the Bradford Playhouse – this was successful, and it now has a shiny new lift installed, making it fully accessible for the first time.

March

As per usual in March, we went to Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth. It was another good event this year and we’ve already booked to go again next year. On the way down, we called at Thaymar Ice Cream, which has a lovely little café and is just off the A1. Sadly, it doesn’t have electric car charging facilities and so we probably won’t be able to stop there next time.

I took our nine-year-old to the Abbey House Museum, which had recently been reprieved from closure. We also visited Tropical World on the same day – we’ve been loads of times and I wrote about it 10 years ago. Christine and I managed to arrange a babysitter, so we had a rare grownup night out and went to see Mickey 17 at the cinema. Speaking of cinemas, I decided to rank six of Britain’s cinema chains in a highly subjective way.

A photo of a hawk with its keeper at the National Centre for Birds of Prey in Helmsley, North Yorkshire

April

We also went to the cinema in April, this time as a family to see A Minecraft Movie. I stand by my review of it being basically fine – great if you’re a Minecraft fan but neither terrible nor a masterpiece.

With the improving weather, we managed a few days out, including RSPB Fairburn Ings, the National Emergency Services Museum and Knowsley Safari Park. As per usual, we went to see my parents in York for the Easter weekend, and from there we also went to the National Centre for Birds of Prey, Ampleforth Abbey and the York Model Railway Show.

May

I wrote about No Mow May at the beginning of the month; as it happens, it wasn’t until this autumn that we got someone in to sort our garden and trim the grass. May is also our wedding anniversary – 12 years this year – and my birthday, for which we went to Beamish to use up our annual pass from last year. We also called in at Kendall’s Ice Cream Parlour in Hipperholme – a favourite of Christine’s when she was younger which sadly closed down later in the year.

On the blog, I wrote the first of our electric car journey blog posts in May.

A photo of the Parthenon at the Athens Acropolis

June

June was a big month in a way that I hadn’t expected at the start of the year. I was given the opportunity to represent my workplace at a summit in Athens, as a guest of PeopleCert who paid for my flights, accommodation and food. They also included a tour of the Acropolis on the first day. Though I have been to Greece before, that was a trip to the island of Crete when I was three which I don’t really remember. Whilst it was a short, intense visit, I thoroughly enjoyed it – especially the food.

June also marked ten years since we bought our house. It’s the longest that I’ve lived in one place since moving out of my parents home aged 18.

July

More travel was to come in July, as we went on our holiday to North Wales. Whilst we were only there for a week, we squeezed a lot in, to the extent that I was still blogging about what we did in September. Our holiday was also a test run for our new electric car that we bought in July. We managed pretty well to say that we’d only had it a week when we set off. We still really like the car, and have no regrets about the switch to electric.

Also in July, we went to an event at the Bradford Literature Festival with Robin Ince and Pierre Novellie. We ended up listening to Robin’s book around Wales, whilst I finally finished Pierre’s book earlier this month.

A photo of Little Moreton Hall, a Tudor house

August

August is my busiest month of the year at work, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t able to have lots of nice days out. We went to the very wonky Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Bowland Wild Boar Park and Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire. Further afield, we went to celebrate my cousin’s 50th birthday in Oxfordshire, calling in at Cadbury World on the way.

I bought myself a new iPad at Costco, making it my fourth overall and the first new iPad in seven years. Speaking of Costco, we let our membership lapse in November, as we’re pretty well stocked up at present. I imagine we’ll re-join some time in the new year, once we’ve finally used everything up.

September

Though not quite as busy as August, September is still a busy time for me at work. However, we did make it to a couple of exhibitions: The Cat That Slept For A Thousand Years and The Art Of The Brick. These have now both closed.

Christine had her birthday, and so we had a little celebratory meal in Leeds, along with a shopping day out in Manchester.

A photo of the Castlefield Viaduct

October

We were back in Manchester in October, to see the Brains, Bogies and You exhibition at the National Science & Industry Museum. Whilst there, we also popped in to see the nearby Castlefield Viaduct. I also took our nine-year-old to The World of Glass in St Helens.

At the theatre, we saw the Rude Science show – I’m hoping to finish the book before the end of today – and I met the Map Men in Leeds. My copy of the book went to my Dad as a birthday present but I’ve listened to the audiobook.

November

We received a big upgrade to our internet at home after we got fibre broadband installed. A couple of months on, and it seems better than what we had before on the whole. We also put up our Christmas tree super early.

We also managed some days out, to the Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield and York’s Chocolate Story, and had an enjoyable day at Thought Bubble in Harrogate. And we watched the first of two pantomimes at the Bradford Playhouse.

A photo of the top of our Christmas tree

December

Back to the cinema again, this time for the second instalment of Wicked. We also had another family celebration, this time for my cousin who had her 25th wedding anniversary. Dress code was black tie, so I hired a suit for the occasion.

I finished work for Christmas on Friday 19th, to coincide with school holidays, and so we went to Quarry Bank Mill last week – our fourth National Trust property of the year. Christmas itself was, as usual, spent with my parents in York.

All in all

Overall, 2025 has been a good year for me. Going to Athens was definitely a highlight, as was our holiday in Wales. Let’s hope 2026 is just as good.

Reviewing my 2025 predictions

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Back in January, I made six predictions about events that would take place in 2025. So, seeing as there’s just a few days left in 2025, let’s see how I did:

Twitter/X won’t become an ‘everything app’

This was a 2024 prediction as well. And it’s been accurate again – X has basically stagnated under Musk. Whilst I no longer use X, I’m not really aware of any new features; just a continuing decline as more extreme voices are amplified. I hope that, in time, X will just become irrelevant.

Donald Trump will be terrible in ways we haven’t foreseen

I mean, this is an easy one, but I think one of the worst things he did this year was his comments about Rob Reiner. Reiner and his wife were tragically killed, probably by their son, and yet Trump decided to criticise him. I try very much not to speak ill of the dead (or at least, not the recently deceased).

Trump and Musk will have a public fall-out

Yes, this happened. They seemed like best buddies at the start of the year, but their respective massive egos got the best of them. It hasn’t ended as badly for Musk as it could have done though.

Labour will do poorly in local elections

Yes, although this was an easy prediction. I was still surprised (and saddened) that Reform managed to take control of several local authorities. That being said, their general mismanagement of Kent County Council shows that they may not be a long-term political force.

There won’t be a General Election in 2025

Again, I was phoning it in a bit here. With Labour not doing so well in national polls but still having a parliamentary majority, I expect they’ll stay for as long as they can.

The overall situation in the Middle East will improve

We finally got a ceasefire (of sorts) in Gaza, although I think it’s a case of things not getting any worse rather than necessarily improving. We’ll see what happens in the medium-term but there’s a lot of rebuilding to do.

I think that’s a reasonable success rate, although frankly some of these predictions were highly likely anyway. I’ve now got a few days to think up some predictions for 2026.

My best children’s books of 2025

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Having written about my favourite adult fiction and non-fiction books of this year, it’s time for the books that we enjoyed reading with our nine-year-old the most this year. This is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

The links below to buy the books are all sponsored links to Amazon, but you’re welcome to borrow these from your local library, or buy them from an independent book shop.

‘Murder! by Narwhal!’ by Alex T Smith

This was a Waterstones book recommendation that we picked up last year. Murder! By Narwhal! is, as you may have guessed, a kid-friendly murder mystery book where someone ends up deceased by the way of a narwhal horn. Our nine-year-old really enjoyed it, and there are plenty of twists and turns in the plot. Like all the best whodunnits, the perpetrator will be a complete surprise, and have made sense all along.

An as-yet untitled sequel to the book is due to come out in 2026.

‘Bunny vs Monkey’ by Jamie Smart

Our nine-year-old has been really getting into comic books this year, hence why four of the six books recommended here are comic books. This is book one of the Bunny vs Monkey series; so far, we’ve read five of them together this year, with others purchased but not yet read.

They are very silly books, which makes them perfect for their target age group.

‘History’s Most Epic Fibs’ by Athena Kugblenu

A non-fiction book! You may know Athenu Kugblenu as an occasional co-host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast, or as a stand-up comedian, or as a contributor to the recent Dead Funny History series on BBC Radio 4. History’s Most Epic Fibs is a kid’s book dispelling commonly believed fake facts from history, like how vikings never war horned helmets, or that Queen Cleopatra was not actually Egyptian. As well as being a source of facts, it’s also a way of teaching critical thinking, and not always taking everything someone says at face value.

We also read this year’s follow-up, History’s Most Epic Fails, about how things went wrong and changed the world – sometimes for the better. I recommend both.

‘Mega Robo Bros’ by Neill Cameron

Our nine-year-old got to meet Neill Cameron at Thought Bubble this year, and so we have a signed poster of one of their favourite comic book series from this year: Mega Robo Bros. Set in near future London, it tells the story of two humanoid robot brothers, who live with their scientist mother and her spouse. Whilst their parents try to let them have a normal life, when a mysterious evil Robot 23 comes onto the scene, their robot super powers suddenly become very useful indeed.

Unlike the Bunny vs Monkey books, which are anthologies of a series of short stories, each book is a complete story within an over-arching plot line. So far, we’ve read the first two books in the series.

‘Cooking with Monsters’ by Jordan Alsaqa

We bought Cooking with Monsters at this year’s Thought Bubble from Vivian Truong, who is the artist behind this comic book series. I should note that this is aimed at young adults, but our nine-year-old enjoyed it and there isn’t much in here that isn’t age-appropriate for younger kids. It’s also quite LGBTQ+ friendly; indeed, one of the main characters is non-binary. We liked the monsters such as the Bull Frog (a frog that is also a bull).

Currently, there are two books in the series – we’ve just read the first so far.

‘Unfairies’ by Huw Aaron

Another Waterstones recommendation, and a sign that comic books are moving into the mainstream, as this is published by Puffin Books. Unfairies is a similar level of silliness to Bunny vs Monkey, and follows the adventures of Pip who works in the storeroom at the bottom of a tree. As he makes his way up the tree, he encounters other fae creatures, all of whom seem to hate each other, until he gets to the top.

We only just finished this book last week. A sequel is due out early next year and was being promoted by Puffin at Thought Bubble, along with a new comic book from Olaf Falafel for which we picked up a free two chapter sampler.

Honourable mentions

We read the first of the Montgomery Bonbon books by Alasdair Beckett-King a couple of years ago, but read the rest this year. They’re good books – all whodunnits.

Into the latter half of 2025

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A view of the Afon Dwyryd from Portmeiron Village in Wales

Good news, we’re already halfway through 2025. Time for another month ahead post, although I am writing this more than two weeks ago during a period of hyper-focus. Here’s the one from last month.

Christine is once again away for work, this time in the West Midlands. She tends to get to travel more for work than I do, but then last month’s trip to Athens does rather trump her short trips for conferences and things.

I suppose the big thing about July will be our annual summer holiday. We’re off to North Wales for a week; seeing as we can get there in around two hours of driving, I’m hoping it’ll be a less stressful holiday. We have some ideas of what we want to do, but at this stage we don’t have any firm plans. I will, of course, blog more about it nearer the time. I also plan to write about our 2018 summer holiday, which I haven’t really blogged about before – last year, I covered 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

There’ll be more about our electric car journey to come, although as I write this we still haven’t bought one yet. We’re likely to buy one this month or the next, as our current car’s MOT expires in September.

Bradford 2025 – UK City of Culture

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A photo of some large illuminated letters spelling out 'Bradford 2025' in green, outside Bradford City Hall

Every four years, a different UK city is designated a City of Culture for the year. And this year, it’s Bradford, the city where I work and used to live.

This isn’t Bradford’s first rodeo. Back when we were still an EU nation, it was decided that a British city would be the European Capital of Culture in 2008. Bradford put in a bid, but wasn’t shortlisted. Ultimately, Liverpool won the bid, but the success of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture resulted in the creation of the UK City of Culture designation, to take place every four years. Derry/Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, won the first designation in 2013, followed by Hull in 2017, Coventry in 2021, and now Bradford in 2025.

Now, I’m biased; I spent eight years living in Bradford and still work there, and indeed my employer is a major Bradford 2025 partner. But I was genuinely delighted when it was announced that the Bradford bid had been successful. When the bid was being prepared, way back in 2019, it was claimed that Bradford has the youngest population of any city in Europe, with 29% of people aged 19 or under. Bradford is also well known for being very multi-cultural, with a large population of British Asians. And there are a number of interesting cultural places in Bradford, including the Theatre in the Mill, Kala Sangam, Impressions Gallery and Cartwright Hall. Bradford itself became the first UNESCO City of Film.

The Bradford 2025 bid includes the wider Bradford district as well, so there’s the Saltaire UNESCO World Heritage Site and Salts Mill, and Haworth, long-associated with the Brontë sisters.

There’s already a long list of events planned throughout 2025. These include the re-opening of the National Science & Media Museum, which has undergone a year-long refurbishment. Bradford 2025 kicked off with Rise, an outdoor event which attracted around 10,000 people on both nights, hosted by Bradford-born illusionist Steven Frayne (who previously went by the name Dynamo).

It’s not just the Media Museum that’s had a refit. If it’s your first time visiting Bradford city centre in a while, you’ll find that much of 2024 was spent pedestrianising many of the streets, making it a much more pleasant place to walk through. Whilst there is some work still to complete, it looks much nicer and the extra trees and shrubs are welcome.

When Hull was City of Culture in 2017, it resulted in the creation of almost 800 jobs in the city, and regeneration of some run down areas by the docks. I hope that Bradford 2025 will be similarly transformational.

Some predictions for 2025

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Last January, I wrote a series of predictions for 2024, and had mixed success. So, I’m going to try again in 2025 – let’s see how these work out.

Twitter/X won’t become an ‘everything app’

I’m recycling this prediction from last year, as it didn’t happen then, and I doubt it’ll happen in 2025 either. Elon Musk is apparently going to co-lead Donald Trump’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ or ‘DOGE’, the name presumably chosen because Elon’s sense of humour hasn’t caught up with his age. So he’ll have more on his plate, and at a time when large numbers of people have left X which will affect advertising revenue. Remember that a lot of the money Elon used to buy Twitter (as-was) was loaned, and he’ll need to start paying those loans back at some point. Having briefly looked at Twitter again this morning, the adverts I saw were for mostly unknown companies, some of which had Community Notes attached to them basically stating they’re a scam. So that’s going well.

I still don’t think Elon will sell X this year, but I expect it’ll largely stagnate again.

Donald Trump will be terrible in ways we haven’t foreseen

Trump has already outlined what he plans to do when he’s back in office as US President. I expect some of those policies to be weakened or dropped entirely; even though the Republicans once again control both the Senate and House of Representatives, but the recent deal to avoid a government shutdown suggests they may not always vote as a contiguous block. And not necessarily in the way that Trump wants either.

But I also expect that there are things we don’t yet know about that Trump will react to in the worst way imaginable.

Trump and Musk will have a public fall-out

Musk’s control of X, and massive donations in the run-up to the election seemed to have allowed him to curry favour of Trump – hence Musk being allowed to co-lead DOGE. But I also expect that their egos will clash, and only one of these two people will be President. What the impact of this will be remains to be seen but I can’t help but see Elon as something of an Icarus character at present.

Labour will do poorly in local elections

There’s a likelihood of local elections on the 1st May 2025, although most of these are for county councils which the government is proposing to abolish, so some areas may have elections after all. Labour’s popularity has dive-bombed since winning the 2024 general election, as the government has introduced some unpopular policies. It’s a tactic that may pay off – the next general election may not be until 2029. But I imagine some people who voted Labour last time may be tempted to vote for other parties. And most of the council seats being defended are currently held by the Conservatives.

Reform UK, the party led by Nigel Farage, managed to return five MPs last year and is hoping to make gains in the local council elections too. And there’s a possibility of a massive cash injection from Musk to give them more resources to do this. I can see Reform putting up a strong challenge to Labour and the Conservatives in some seats. Whether they’ll win any, or just split the vote, remains to be seen.

There won’t be a General Election in 2025

Okay, this is a very easy prediction to make. General elections in the UK need to happen approximately every five years, and so the next one isn’t scheduled to 2029, as mentioned above. But governments can call early ones, and indeed this happened in 2017 and 2019.

The only reason why I’m including it here is because 3 million people have (apparently) signed a petition calling for a general election, and it’s currently the most popular petition. There will be a debate about this on Tuesday 6th January, apparently, but most likely in Westminster Hall and not the House of Commons.

The overall situation in the Middle East will improve

I don’t know if there will be a ceasefire in Gaza this year; I hoped for one last year, and it didn’t come to pass. But the situation in Syria is, at long last, encouraging, and I hope that the region as a whole stabilises.

Well, we’ll see what happens at the end of the year.

Welcome to 2025!

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Good grief, has it really been 25 years since the Millennium?

As per usual, we didn’t stay up to see in the new year – that’s a thing we would have done years ago, but Christine and I are both in our forties now. I’m back at work tomorrow, but Christine has the rest of the week off.

January will be my blogiversary month again, and this time it’ll be 23 years (minus the four year hiatus) since I started blogging. Over the Christmas break, I reinstated over a hundred old blog posts from the 2010s from the Web Archive, so at least it looks like I’ve been regularly blogging throughout most of those 23 years.

My plan for 2025 is to carry on posting new blog entries every other day, as this seems like a manageable amount. I kept it up throughout most of 2024.

Things that are currently in our calendar include Sci-Fi Weekender again in March, down in Great Yarmouth, and our summer holiday in July. We’re not currently planning to go abroad again this year – instead, we’re off to Wales for a week. The last time we went to Wales was in 2018, back when Sci-Fi Weekender was hosted near Pwlleli, so although all three of us have been, our nine-year-old was only two and probably doesn’t remember it.

At some point, we’ll probably also go to London again, but we haven’t planned or booked it yet.

I also have some big admin things, as my passport needs renewing – technically it’s in date, but was issued more than 10 years ago which means it’s not valid in many countries. Like I said, I’m not planning to travel abroad, but passport renewal turnarounds seem pretty quick at the moment, and then it’s done. I’ll be keeping my current passport safe though, as it has some interesting stamps in it from my 2015 work trip to the Middle East.

Also, August will be 10 years since I passed my driving test, and so I’ll need to renew my driving license too later in the year.