I have returned to write another annual blog post.

So here it is.

This year has felt very steady. No huge life changes or successes, just a pleasant, calm year.

I would highly recommend living with Rachel¹. She is funny and surprises me often. We've got a good situation going, we do a lot of cooking together, and work hard at avoiding any sort of cleaning.

Rach has had a far more eventful year than myself. She learned to drive and bought a car². She also decided to learn to make her own clothes so also bought a sewing machine³. That's particularly great because Wednesday Painting Night has become Hobby Night.

Work

We passed three very exciting milestones at work this year, and I feel things are still improving in all directions.

First off, after lots of hard work from Emma, Bibliocloud was rebranded as Consonance. The rebrand went hand-in-hand with a redesign of the main application page layout and navigation, which I was happy to be able to help with and am still very pleased with the results.

Once the brand was up-to-date, we were able to move into a newer, more fitting office space, just five minutes round the corner from where we were. It suits us really well, and the toilet isn't in the cupboard under the stairs. Swanky.

Topping off the year, after a lot more hard work from Emma over many long months, the application itself was upgraded from Rails 4 to Rails 5.2. Given the amount of long-lived code in the repo this was no small feat.

We're now in a really decent spot and I'm keen to keep this momentum going into the next year.

Play

Last year, after weeks of training I ran my first marathon.

Is what I would have been writing if my knee hadn't decided it didn't much fancy the distance. Or running at all, for that matter.

Instead I half-walked, half-bussed around the course of the Thames Meander, cheering on Rach whilst she did a fantastic job of actually running it.

I rested, got advice from the physio, joined a gym and am on the slow road to a full recovery and eventual marathon. Give me another few years.

We went snowboarding again, this time to Italy. Although not the winter wonderland of last year, this holiday was made memorable because Matt⁴ came along. Which was his first time abroad and his first time on an aeroplane. I was glad I could be part of that.

During the summer we pretended we were fourteen again; meeting up weekly at Thame skatepark to slowly rattle around on skateboards. Very silly. Lots of fun.

I'm still doing as many WarHams as I can manage, both painting and playing. A while ago a local, independent hobby store opened up and it has been ace to play some games in there. Which leads me to…

Play Work

Paint Pad is a place to create, share and discover recipes for painting miniatures.

It's a project that I have been working on for over a year, now. I was hoping to be able to write about the full launch, but it's not quite ready yet.

Which means I have to write another blog post in a month or so. Awkward.

Things

Things, things, things. Things? Things!

• Book: Brief Answers to the Big Questions
• Comic: The Wicked + The Divine vol. 7: Mothering Invention
• Game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Dota 2⁵
• Film: Avengers: Endgame
• TV show: Parks & Recreation
• Album: Songs for Imaginative People by Darwin Deez
• Gig: Coheed and Cambria at The Roundhouse
• Podcast: Imaginary Advice
• Show: Bill Bailey: Larks in Transit at Wyndham's Theatre

Finally

I worry about my retreat into games and models and fiction as the real world slides and shifts evermore seriously.

Visit your dentist regularly, kids.

It is hard to keep in contact with the people you care about the most.

Pete is leaving in a few months for a year-long adventure abroad. I will miss him.

Friends I have known for years have had babies that I haven't met yet.

I don't hang out with my parents enough.

This is the year I learn to drive.

Onwards.