2025 BINGO!

 Well, inspired by several friends, at the start of last year I put together this 2025 goals bingo...

So... how did it go? Well... I did get a bingo, but ONLY JUST!

Mostly for my own satisfaction, here's the detail...

1. I DID finish my PG Cert with a good grade (distinction!)

2. I DID visit at least 3 new piers (I actually visited 7):

Weymouth, Swanage, Cromer, Lowestoft (2), Great Yarmouth (2)

Weymouth

Swanage

Cromer

Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

3. I DID get the record player up and running and actually use it
4. I did NOT bake at least 3 new cakes. I only baked two :( 
A lemon and blackberry polenta cake (it was fine) and a carrot cake for spen birthday (I don't like carrot cake). I have given up on being motivated with baking for 2026 :)

5. I did NOT publish at least 2 new zines :(

But I was really pleased with the one I did publish! And lots of people have said they enjoyed it. It was nice to make something entirely stupid and fun for a change, rather trying to make something smart or worthy. More of that for 2026.

 

 

6. I DID get at least 1 tattoo (in July)

 

7. I DID cook at least 20 new recipes! (Couldn't have done with without Meera Sodha) And here they are...

  - [x] 1. Meera Sodha’s broccoli spaghetti with Zhoug (fine, not worth having again)
  - [x] 2. Meera Sodha’s celery and shiitake congee (fine, not worth having again)
  - [x] 3. Vegan pea and ham soup (Uh, I lost the recipe? But it was good?!)
   - [x] 4. Meera's Parsnip gochugang gnocchi (made it twice, first time incredible, second time sucked. I should try again)
  - [x] 5. Experimental sticky chilli beef mince rice bowl (It was great, but do I remember what I did? No.)
  - [x] 6. Meera sodha’s aubergine kofta (I did not like this one)
  - [x] 7. Grated tofu bbq sando (good but too much effort)
  - [x] 8. Thee burger dude Tofu banh mi (too much effort but definitely worth doing again)
  - [x] 9. Gyoza salad (Can't find the recipe. But I ate this loads. Not sure it's really 'cooking' though)
  - [x] 10. Tofu in tomato cashew sauce (This was BAD)
  - [x] 11 Meera sodha pickled pea orzotto (I liked this but forgot to make it again)
  - [x] 12 mushroom ‘scallops’ (extraordinarily weird)
  - [x] 13 lemony garlicky butter bean soup (Delicious!)
  - [x] 14 lemon asparagus orzo (Delicious!)
  - [x] 15 Meera Sodha tandoori cauliflower (Delicious, made it loads)
  - [x] 16 Meera sodha Nam Jim aubergine salad (An all timer, I will continue to make this often)
  - [x] 17 Meera Sodha miso butter greens orrechiette (Not great)
  - [x] 18 Meera Sodha coconut tofu green bean curry (Delicious but I never got round to making it again)
  - [x] 19 Meera drunken noodles (Pretty good, should make again)
  - [x] 20 Mexican corn salad but for rice and with smoked tofu not feta or bacon (A healthier variation on a favourite)
  - [x] 21 Pain con tomate (Iconic summer lunch)
  - [x] 22 Crispy rice salad (Delicious!)
  - [x] 23 Meera Sodha black bean tofu (Needs work for next time)

8. I did NOT hang some art on my walls :( (My walls are still not painted)

9. I DID actually sew on those elbow patches (amongst other sewing tasks)

10. I DID visit York.

11. I DID plant something in the garden. Like one thing. Badly. then left it to die and Spen tended it. I am not naturally green fingered.

12. I DID NOT visit Hebden Bridge. Ran out of time :(

13. I DID NOT read at least 12 books. I read 5 and then I learned that fanfic exists. So uh... I have probably read at least 12 books worth of sexy yakuza fanfic. But definitely not 12 real books. Oh dear. I DID read:
    - [x] 1 Donella Meadows: When species meet*
    - [x] 2 Earthsea the first four books by Ursula K Le Guin*
    - [x] 3 Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes
    - [x] 4 What Design can’t do by Silvia Lorussio*
    - [x] 5 The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
*started last year 

14. I DID keep doing visual diaries all year

15. I DID NOT play a board game at least once a month, but I got close?!

    - [x] January: Trendy, Cosmic Encounter and No Thanks with spen, Beth and Angus. Galaxy trucker and Ghost Blitz with Spen, Kath and Fuad.
    - [x] February: Yogi with Spen and Vaishnavi, Lacuna with Catherine, Wilmots warehouse with V and friends, No Thanks with Spen, Nadia and Cal, Concordia with Camille, Cathy, and Spen
    - [x] March: Arboretum with Spen 
    - [x] April: Wavelength and No Thanks with V and friends, Town 77 with Spen 
    - [ ] May: fail! 
    - [x] June: Spots and V’s experimental sausage game with George and V
    - [x] July: Arboretum with Spen 
    - [x] August: Mah Jong with honor and friends 
    - [ ] September: fail!
    - [x] October: Perspectives with V and friends 
    - [x] November: Piece of cake, Acropolis, Botswana with Beth and Angus, Botswana and Wavelength with Spen, Dav and Justin.
    - [x] December: Lure with Spen

January 

February

June

August 

October

November (not exactly a boardgame but we ALSO did an escape room) 

16. I DID table at at least 1 zine fair (Rose tinted spectacular in Newhaven, Margate zine fair with Kier) 

17. I DID NOT visit at least 5 spas (only two — Rena Spa at Leonardo Royal London St. Pauls and Aire Spa Sevilla)

 

18. I DID go life drawing at least once — I actually went three times, in June, November and December.

19.  I DID NOT save up enough money to get new windows in 2026. And it seems unlikely that I will do so this year either, but I must persist

20. I DID finish Link’s Awakening and start a new video game — however all I played this year was Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii (which was such fun I made the aforementioned zine and got obsessed with Yakuza fanfic) and Yakuza 0, which I am still on (though nearly done with). 

21. I DID maintain my Duolingo streak in chinese, but I am definitely phoning it in a bit and need to TRY HARDER

22. I DID NOT complete at least as far as section 20 of the London Loop. But I did a bunch!
    - [x] 12 (3/1/25)
    - [x] 13 (3/1/25)
    - [x] 14 (9/2/25)
    - [x] 15 (22/7/25)
    - [x] 16 (8/11/25) 
    - [x] 17 (31/12/25) 

23. I DID leave the UK for a bit (I went to Seville in March!)

 24. I DID go to at least three gigs, but only barely. 

    - [x] 1. Flamenco in Seville (does that count? There was live music!)
    - [x] 2. Baths in May 
    - [x] 3. Pan Amsterdam in June 
    - [x] 4. Reggie watts in August  

 

(I've seen Reggie enough times that I totally failed to take a picture of him, only this ice cream) 

So... I definitely didn't ace my goals, but I did A LOT, and many were partially completed. I also accomplished some unexpected things NOT on the goals list...

I wrote 150,000 words of (quite good?!?!) fanfic 
I visited two heritage railways (and got really excited about heritage railways)
I got a new job 
I did 2 livestreams (this one was fine but this one was, IMO, amazing)

 So... what's in store for 2026? Well, here's the plan...

 Wish me luck!!!

December 2025

In some ways December is my favourite month of the year, and the main reason for that is that there's a blessed period of around 8 days where no one emails me

 

At the start of the month however, I was still BUSY. This day, specifically, using the pen plotter at uni to make my Christmas cards. Never again :) (It was a faff and my boss Keir did most of the hard work! Also I don't think anyone even knew they were pen-plottered). Next year note to self to just do something easy.

 
While pen-plottering the last of my cards, Keir and I also plotted the entire next term of our MA delivery. I embellished my already quite chaotic big-piece-of-paper diagram for my visual diary because I was so pleased with it

Another example of 'I am too tired to visual diary but I made something cool at work that I am going to hack to pieces and turn into something else' — I was teaching some illustration evening classes with teenagers from around London, and this session was about creating fantastical visions. Fantastical creatures, fantastical buildings, fantastical modes of transport, and fantastical people. This is really not the kind of thing I usually draw, and I was mostly focussed on helping the students with their ideas and chatting with them, but this was what I did, and later pieced together the individual elements into a strange scene.

10% of the time, the food in the uni canteen is truly excellent I am genuinely delighted. 30% of the time, the food in the uni canteen is just straightforwardly good. 50% of the time the food in the uni canteen fills a hole at a reasonable price. 9% of the time, the food in the uni canteen is actively unpleasant. and 1% of the time the food in the uni canteen is so bad that an hour later I genuinely feel like I am about to vomit in front of an entire class of students.

I am obsessed with barrel trousers. I need to stop buying more pairs of barrel trousers.

December is the season for artists open studios, so on this Saturday I went to TWO — Cockpit Studios where my pal Lucy is Marmor Paperie, and my other pal V's ceramics studio. (Then I tried to draw some of Lucy's lovely marbling and V's nice vase)

There was always this weird 'shop' down the road from us that wasn't actually a shop at all. But it had the 'express dairy co' sign immaculately maintained, and there'd always be weird artistic assemblages in the window. Anyway, the guy who lived and worked there died this summer, and his family opened up the house and all his weird art for anyone in the neighbourhood to go in and explore, and it was great.

KJ refused to go for a walk for a couple of days, but there was nothing else obviously wrong with her. Maybe she was a bit achey, or maybe she is simply a strange little person who is allowed to have her whims.

Went life drawing but was not particularly good at it, this time. (Always fun to try though)

Teaching my final evening class of the set, my young students combined their banal still life drawings of mundane scenes around the building with some of their fantastical elements. I took my drawings of chairs and added a (slightly) futuristic raised railway, obviously.

 

I bunked off all of my work christmas parties because I was tired and not in the mood for being social :)

AND because I wanted to save my energy for pal Jade's birthday Ceilidh in Brighton the next night! (Which was very fun as always)

When I was growing up we were only allowed to get christmas tree after school term ended, and I stick to that principle now (uni ended on the 12th!)

 My partner's friend sold us his second-hand BOB countertop dishwasher, and I LOVE BOB

I like the few days where the willows drop their leaves and they're still bright yellow on the ground before fading to brown

As part of my professional train-liker obligations, I went to see the 'Cockfosters' comedy play at the theatre with my partner and our friend Kath. It was... fine :) A little too slapstick/OTT for my liking, but they did get in a LOT of good train references

KJ's here to let you know — she'd like more dinner

I went to the work 'staff development day'. (AKA stuff fun activities day) but the wreath making workshop was sold out so my heart wasn't really in it for the life drawing I did go to. Mostly I just wanted my free lunch at Mercato.

I took a couple of months off volunteering at Samaritans because I was so overwhelmed at work, but it was nice to be back to all the familiar routines like getting too much free stale bread from Gails and everyone being scared of the boiling water tap.

Drew this while watching the strictly final on the assumption that Carlos would NOT win and then he DID win (so he's not only my winner but also like, the winner winner). (Karen is also good but I am really in it for Carlos and Julian tbh)

 
Went to my parents overnight for a little pre-christmas festivity with an Indian takeaway, strictly final, and cuddles with my dog sister.

Did a cheeky lil bit of London loop!

I did my last Samaritans shift of the year, and thus my final proper-out-of-the-house errand before Christmas. YAY! But Kelly Jessie got kennel cough! BOO. (Only a mild case, she's fine now)

My partner went to do christmas with their mother up north, and I fulled leaned into the luxury emma lifestyle (of just leaving things out everywhere)

Nice chill Christmas day of me and KJ watching TV and playing video games and eating tasty food. (I love solo Christmas where I have everything my way :)

 
Gift from my parents was some cash towards a new ipad. I got my current ipad in 2020 secondhand from CEX (I think it was a 2016 model), so it's done me really well! But it was starting to lag and the OS alone was taking up over half the paltry 32gb storage, so given I use it so much for work these days I decided it was worth getting a new(er) one, still secondhand from CEX. It's good!!! (You will not be able to tell from any difference in my drawings but it was starting to get to the stage where there was sometimes quite a lot of lag, so hopefully doing my visual diaries will be a little bit more pleasant!)

Here is self-portrait with new ipad (on sofa, with heated blanket, where I have mostly been since the 23rd)

 

Me and some of my best friends are going to go on a holiday later this year! It was a fun challenge trying to choose a holiday cottage to make us all happy (Dav, I am sorry about your moustache. I don't know what happened)

 In a vague attempt to revive my old 'christmas II' tradition (on a much smaller scale and not in my house), me and some lovely friends went to Toby Carvery for a roast (there should have been many more lovely friends but sickness/childcare woes/fatigue hindered the full gang). Anywhere here we all are as badly drawn Toby jugs.

I went out walking in my neighbourhood around sunset and I saw this tree and wanted to draw it. (I really like how it came out)

And today I did a LONDON LOOP!! A full one this time too, in the always-lovely company of Jay. Good to end the year on a solid nearly-nine-mile hike in the glorious sunshine (also I have been to Cockfosters twice this month and seen the Cockfosters play so I am obviously having my Cockfosters moment)

Happy 2026 everyone, and thanks for looking at my silly drawings for another year. It's nice to have you along for the ride xx