My Worst Moment of 2024

So as 2024 draws to a close I’m thinking about what the worst moment of the year was. Was it the seemingly endless array of hospital and GP appointments I attended? The constant pain I’ve found myself in since my illness and operation in 2023? Losing my job and the support network it provided at a time when that support network was needed more than ever?

Nope. For me the worst moment in 2024 was losing Tinker. Her passing didn’t hit me hard because it was unexpected, or because she was at a relatively young age. It hit me like a ton of bricks because of what she did for me.

A Sudden Aversion to Christmas Songs

A few weeks ago, with the help of Wikipedia, I made a few Christmas playlists on Spotify. The playlists contained songs from the seventies and eighties that had made a dent on the UK charts. The usual suspects were there, all arranged neatly in chronological order.

This morning I decided to try and get into the Christmas spirit a little, so after I got out of the shower I connected my phone to my Bluetooth speaker and fired up the playlist, but when the songs began the music didn’t achieve the effect I’d originally envisioned.

The Festivus Airing of Grievances 2024

So today is Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us. If you do not know what the hell I’m talking about then either Google it or dig out your old Seinfeld box set.

Anyway, it is a Festivus tradition that one should air their grievances to their family and friends. If I were to do that it would probably take me an age, and if some of my family (and I use that word loosely) are reading this they are probably getting ready to leave a comment here. They can feel safe in the knowledge that this grievance is not aimed at them. It is aimed at a company, one of the many I’ve been employed by during my working life.

You see, if you’ve been reading this blog you’d know that about nine months ago I lost my job because of my ongoing health problems, mainly because I couldn’t provide a date for when I’d be able to return to work.

December 13th

December 13th, 2024. It’s that time of year again when my thoughts turn to someone who is no longer, because it was forty-one years ago today that my Mum passed away at the age of 53. I was just 12 years old when this happened.

I’ve found myself thinking about her, and about Dad, a hell of a lot over the past eighteen months, particularly when I was in hospital. As I approached my 52nd birthday I really thought that I could be heading down the same road she did.

I also found myself thinking about how Mum and Dad would have handled my being in that situation. I quickly came to the conclusion that was a daft thing to think about. If they had been alive I have no doubt that they would have been fussing over me and making sure everything was okay because, simply put, they were my Mum and Dad, and that was what they did.