Hourly comics day 2025

Twelfth year of hourly comicsing! Wild.

You can see all the previous hourly comics days here...

2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

I first started doing these digitally in 2021, and sometimes wonder if I peaked that year (2021 and 2019 are maybe my favs). In 2021, I did the typography using a font, which simultaneously felt like cheating and made those some of the coolest ones. Maybe next year I'll revisit that approach. For now, I think these went better than last year at least, mostly because I chose a nicer pen nib! Still I wish I'd had time for a few more colourful flourishes.

It's also weird doing it on a Saturday — even though in theory it's better, in practice it's kind of fun drawing the stuff I am forced to do on weekdays rather than the stuff I choose to do on a weekend. Both interesting in their own way I guess. Next year's is a Sunday so we'll find out again then!

January 2025

Well, I don't wish to tempt fate for the rest of the year, but I've had quite a peppy January, actually. I don't tend to set much store by 'new year, new start' mindset normally, but 2024 was frankly a less than good year for me, and I have entered 2025 quite forcefully motivated to MAKE IT BETTER

I had been planning on spending January 1st on a bracing hike through the Sussex countryside with my friend August. However, with weather due to be terrible, we decided to rearrange and instead visit a stately home. But the stately home was also closed due to terrible weather! So we called the whole thing off. 

Despondent, I moped around for the morning trying to remember what I actually like doing if given totally free rein. I wasn't in the mood for a gallery or a show, the weather was (as mentioned) too bad for a hike or anything outdoors, and I'd spent the preceding two weeks on gentle household hobbies.

I started thinking about nice sensory experiences and remembered how much I love to SWIM! And then I remembered how much I love to SPA!!! My favourite London spa (which I have only been to once) is £££ and I cannot afford that right now, but I started doing some research and it turns out there are much cheaper ways to go spa, and one of them is booking into a hotel spa during an off-peak time — this one only cost £35!

The weather was truly terrible and I very much enjoyed pretending to be the kind of rich person who can stay in a nice hotel for a couple of hours.

I enjoyed it so much...

 

...That I decided to make doing it a bunch more times one of my EMMA LIFE GOALS for 2025. 

As metioned, I am not normally super into new years resolutions, but I saw a few other friends making a cute lil nice things to do in 2025 bingo grid, and decided to indulge myself by doing it too. And it has been so nice! and so motivating!! Why do we always resolve to do the horrible thing (exercise, eat less) when we could resolve to do the fun thing?!

Talking of fun things — finally did go on a hike, and a big one at that. The next two sections of my ongoing London Loop adventure were somewhat annoying, as there was no easy transit option at the end of section 12/start of section 13. I made the executive decision to run the two together into a mega-hike, and roped my sweet friend Alex in for the ride. The weather was absolutely glorious (bright sunlight, blue skies, and crisp cold which helpfully meant all the mud was frozen), and we saw lots of interesting sights, including sunken boats, brutalist architecture, and the seediest looking pub I've ever encountered (we did not go in, we just read the reviews). I also did a lot of very satisfying icy puddle stomping, like the toddler I still am.

Before it was truly time for work to start again, went to visit our old housemate Beth (and partner Angus) for some boardgames and chatter. 

If I do say so myself, I am already pretty hot on my decluttering game, but enjoy it so much I take any opportunity to do more, so, (inspired by my lovely friend Daisy), I joined in with an instagram influencer's January tidy up challenge. (I have been doing it in big chunks rather than daily though, so have not yet hit the 100 items goal, though I know I can do it...)

Jessie is still pretty grumpy with most other dogs on our walks, though for reasons entirely her own, (possibly related to not being on a lead), copes A-ok when out with her dog walker. Every day on our local walk we meet a man and his little white scottie dog, and if I let Jessie get near enough to meet them, both dogs absolutely LOSE THEIR MINDS with rage

As well as starting fights with guys much smaller than her, she also loves face in hedge

Everyone talks about the gap between Christmas and new year as a weird liminal time where you don't quite know what to do with yourself, but that's wrong, because the answer is clearly 'whatever you want'. The difficult period in my view (as a freelancer and latterly academic) is the first week or two of Jan where you know you probably should be working, but don't entirely want to.

I know I know, it's good for nature when temps drop below zero because all the plants expect it, and if it doesn't get cold in Jan it's a bad sign of global warming, but it doesn't mean I have to like it, okay

Came to my Samaritans shift to find devastating news, the Pret who usually let us take all their leftovers home at 8pm have SHUT DOWN FOR GOOD?!?!?! We have a new deal with Gail's but Gail's is rubbish (all they ever send us is like a million cinnamon buns, I hate that shit)

Emma's ongoing 'it's nice to do nice things' mission continues, with a trip down to Brighton. First, a tour around the super cool tunnels of the Pavillion with August (who it was good to see after our new year's day excursion so woefully failed), and then lunch at NEW Pompoko with Jade. Having been eating at Pompoko for, somehow, over 16 years (what is time), it was very disconcerting to hear they had decided to open a second branch (I know it should seem like a good thing but I worry the perfect Pompoko equilibrium that has kept them alive for so long will somehow topple). I will concede that the new branch is much more spacious and chill for a slower lunch, and it was lovely to see Jade and celebrate our mutual fav, Yubamaki.

I think my iPad (on which I create my visual diaries in Procreate) is starting to age a little (I bought it already secondhand in 2020, so I guess it's doing okay considering)

The clear out continues! 

I decided to finally let go of a load of blank notebooks I'd bought/been gifted over the years, so took them in the next day and gave them to my students (who were genuinely delighted), so that felt wholesome.

Mum and Dad got me a new rucksack for Christmas (at my request), and it's GREAT! I also got myself new shoes and new trousers as a christmas treat, so felt very back-to-school motivated by all my nice new things.

Had a day of weird stabbing pains in my abdomen and half convinced myself I had appendicitis, then they went away. What even are bodies?!

Nine months after the rewire, we are finally (very slowly) sorting our shit out. (Well, my partner is, because they knew I'd do a botch job of it if left to my own devices, and they are probably right). It is happening very slowly but I am SO glad some little bits of the house are starting to look somewhat tidier.

I don't think I've talked about it loads, but for the last year I've been completing a PG Cert qualification. It means I'm a real teacher or something? Anyway the culmination of this was a day of presentations about our final major project to our peers (and then afterwards we all go to Wetherspoons and gently celebrate/brace for grades in a few weeks). It's mostly been a nice year, as quite a few of my co-students were people I'd already met in various other contexts around the university, so it was nice to all come to together and be students ourselves.

Did some leaf raking in the garden. I like doing this because loads of robins come and lurk around the edges of the garden, hopping along behind me whenever I move away to eat all the bugs I've unearthed. (Robins were my fav animal as a small child)

I wish she wasn't QUITE so motivated to kill, but so it goes

One of my big stresses over the last few months has been saving up enough money to cut down lots of trees in our garden. I managed it, and it was a good job we did it this year, as once they cut them down there were signs of ash die-back visible in their hearts (including in this ominous 'X' pattern in one of them)

The garden is so much lighter now! It's a real mess though, as they had to take the fence down and there's loads of sawdust everywhere. Looking forwards to it all being filled with new growth soon as it's a bit of a mud patch at the moment.

Is anyone else who's with Octopus taking part in their energy saving sessions? It's a fun concept, but don't take it too far and fall over your dog.

(It's okay, I was just having a bad day)

'Tis the season for my intense phobia of vomiting to kick right back in! Everyone* has norovirus! (*My parents, my friends, my colleagues). Best to just assume every surface is covered in a fine layer of excrement tbh (sob) — getting norovirus is pretty much my worst nightmare, so I am being a little obsessive about avoiding it.

Luckily not so obsessive as to stop going out and doing stuff though (even though, as mentioned, we must assume every public transport surface is covered with excrement). Faced with a free Saturday, decided to hop on the tram and find out What's At The End of the Line?! (If I could be bothered, I'd make a series out of this...) — anyway, the answer is 'not actually that much', but the weather was lovely again, so I had a nice time (and got to visit the forest where Jessie's dog walker takes her out, though without Jessie obvs, because she's way too much of a dickhead/scaredy girl to come on the tram)

Talking of devices failing, my fitbit died and since they're now owned by Google I figured one evil's as bad as the other and I might as well get an Apple watch instead (a cheapy secondhand one from CEX, not new obvs). It is simultaneously fun and uneccesarily excessive (All I really need is the time and some body metrics, but it's fun to also be able to see a picture of my dog on my wrist whenever I want to)

Some of the Quakers I go to meeting with were hosting a lil dinner and discussion group at their house, so I decided to go along. Some people have NICE HOUSES huh

One of my 2025 EMMA LIFE GOALS was to actually get my record player functioning again. 

My current partner actually bought me a record player like, 3 years ago?! But for some reason I never set it up. Why?

Well, I guess I felt obnoxious playing records out loud in a shared house (which we lived in until late 2023), and still even feel kinda obnoxious playing records out loud even when it's just me and my partner home!

Also I guess, in the immediate run up to the pandemic, music was a huge part of my life. Those of you who knew me back then may remember some of my ridiculous adventures, which involved a lot of travel, a lot of meeting people in the music world, a lot of live shows, and basically a very heightened focus on music as a big part of my life. When the pandemic came along, all of that shut down overnight, and though I never stopped listening to music, the intense connection I had with discovery and the live scene just sort of snapped and never came back. I bought most of these records at a time when I was deep in that world (like, I met/knew some of the people who made these records! I bought them at shows!) and there was something kind of wistful and sad about putting them on and remembering all that I lost (without even really realising I'd lost it, until much later on)

But anyway, the time is right I guess. I'm listening through my whole collection, A-Z (slowly), and having a great time doing so. And I'm gonna try and get more engaged again, break the tie to Spotify algorithms and actually re-embrace better ways of hearing new stuff (like listening to radio shows by actual real people). 

My intense gig going days might be over (when I think back to 2017/18 and all those times I stayed up until 3 or 4am, that feels incomprehensible to me now), but I did make it one of my goals to be a bit more proactive about going to shows this year, so that is what I will try and do.

And then last night we had a lovely boardgames time with Kath, Fuad, and their rowdy lad Rafiki. (I love Galaxy Trucker!)

It has been [0] days since Emma accidentally put a tissue in the machine.

It feels like it's been quite a nice month overall, which is something of a feat for a January. Here's hoping I can keep it rolling into Feb.

December 2024

Well, December has been a somehwat medicore end to a somewhat medicore year, I am sorry to say — but not sure what else I expected. At least I have had a nice rest.

Starting the month with my silly little tasks

Potential side project for 2025: some kind of adventure with Central London Samaritans archives... (With help from my National Archives pal Kath)

It was nice to catch up with my old friend Reggie in Brighton, who SOMEHOW has not lost his voice since 1999?! (Until now) As a touring musician, how is that even possible?! Anyway, I gave him Lemsip, which apparently they do not have in America (or even anything quite like it).

On the way back from Brighton, I LOST MY APPLE PENCIL

Despairing at my lack of drawing tool (other than my finger), I decided to make the most of a challenging situation, and challenged my parter to a DRAW OFF (of Mario characters, obvs). I vote, we both win.

I went to my friend Jade's birthday Ceilidh (again in Brighton?! Lot of Brighton trips for one week). It was fun! Still in absence of apple pencil, an abstract approach (it's not very good, but it's good to have a creative challenge every once in a while)

Then me and my partner went to the Wellcome Collection's exhibition about unseen and underappreciated forms of labour and the effect these have on the body. I liked these African stamps raising awareness of malaria, and a beautiful artistic embroidered piece depicting mosquitos.

My partner (and Jessie) got locked out on a particularly cold, rainy, damp day, and had to wait three hours for me to get home. (Jessie actually had quite a nice time)

I didn't think we'd get a tree as we don't have loads of space, but we did, we made it work, and I am really glad :) (Still no apple pencil)

My partner enjoyed the finger drawing challenge so much we had another go with their all time favourite franchise...

Had a very lovely party for our students, with gingerbread houses, lebanese food, and other cute things. Had a nice time, but by this point extremely tired and ready for christmas break.

Caved and ordered a new apple pencil (well, second hand, from CEX). The day it arrived, found the old one in my coat pocket. TERRIBLE!!! (So now I have two, I guess)

Went to see that Holly Herndon / Mat Dryhurst exhibit at the Serpentine, I thought it was pretty neat

I edited the full drawing out of this one so you can't all see where I live, BUT, the exciting news is, my friend Vicky moved in RIGHT THERE (in the block of flats just next to my row). Me and Vicky did Art Foundation together in North Wales, so we go way back. It's so nice to have a friend so close! (Vicky didn't actually know where I lived when she put in the offer on her place, so she may not have chosen this but she's stuck with me now!)

I DARED to have the thought that it had been quite a while since my toilet clogged, when sure enough my toilet clogged (or at least, started draining very slightly slowly). Went out back to lift the manhole and poke the pipe with my special long pole, only to discover the problem was much worse and NOT just my sewer. The entire shared sewer for our block was only about a foot from overflowing with raw sewage, and I freaked the fuck out and called a very expensive emergency plumber.

The emergency plumber told me the problem was too big for him to fix and I needed to call Thames Water, and ideally tell everyone in our block to stop using water ASAP.

So, I went door my door, introducing myself to any neighbours I didn't know, and telling everyone how imminent our collective peril was. (If everyone kept using their facilities unabated, raw sewage would flow firstly across all of our gardens, and then potentially rise up and pour out of the ground floor flats' toilets, sinks, baths etc.) 

BAD!! BAD BAD BAD!!!!

Anyway luckily Thames Water came out first thing the next day and blasted through the FATBERG at the end of the street and peril was averted, all thanks to Emma. (Had I not spotted the slightly slow draining of the toilet, we may not have realised until things got much messier).

I can now look back and say that ACTUALLY it was really nice to meet all of my neighbours, but I'd rather it had not been in such poopy circumstances (door numbers also censored lest they somehow give you the ability to figure out where I live)

If I have a REALLY difficult, focussed task to do, I am most likely to succeed if I do it as soon as I wake up, in bed. That's just the science.

However, heated blanket on the sofa is a good second option

At uni, got to go on a 'staff development day', which is essentially a fancy name for a festive choose your own adventure day, with free breakfast, free lunch, and various activites to choose from. I did a wreath making workshop and life drawing! I was delighted to discover that somehow in the 5 or so years since I last did life drawing I have magically miraculously improved (who'd have thought doing these silly drawings every day was actually helping something...)

Really though, I simply cannot get over how good this blanket is. I barely even need to put the heating on, I just snuggle under this! Total winter gamechanger, I wish I had had one of these for all those icy rental house years.

Hopped on the train to visit my parents, who took me out for a christmassy Indian dinner at our fav place. 

AND THEN I GOT SICK AGAIN

I am truly miserable at this point — this calendar graphic depicts all of the days I have had a cold of some kind since October. I got my flu and COVID vaccines on Oct 3rd, and immediately became incredibly ill for a week (unclear if it was a virus or effect of the vaccines). I then continued to be badly fatigued throughout all of October, until I got ill again on the 23rd/24th and that cold blasted everything bad out of my system by early Nov. But sure enough I got ANOTHER cold in late Nov, and now ANOTHER (and let me tell you, this was the worst yet) late Dec. 

Clearly something is wrong with me — I am either run down/burned out, lacking some kind of vitamins, or both. I need to start masking on public transport all the time again and eat a damn orange or something. I am also a bit frightened that I just have some profound issues with my upper respiratory system, as I haven't been truly 'right' since around 2021 (and I am in the process of an NHS referal for this, but these things are slowwwww).

My partner went away to spend Christmas up north with their mother, so me and Jessie were alone for a week. To be honest, in normal circumstances, this is kind of ideal — I am no fan of family christmases, and my dream christmas is just being cosy at home by myself and having everything just so (actually my dream christmas is that but being somewhere exciting abroad but you can't have it all). But it is a lot less fun when you're sicccccck. 

Had written myself a huge long list of satisfying jobs to do over the christmas break, one of which was actually getting re-set up with all my loyalty cards after my bag got stolen in July 2023 (I have missed so many points!!!)

Some companies make this process easier than others (lost about a decade of boots points I'd been saving for a treat, blah)

Despite being sick (so I couldn't taste it), made a bangin' christmas lunch. Got some cute gifts too, and enjoyed being cosy and watching festive TV with Jessie.

What shall I do with my boxing day? How about prepare my final PG Cert (teaching qualification) presentation which I have to deliver in January! Turns out I am not as good at making presentations as I smugly thought to myself...

What shall I do with my day after boxing day? Take advantage of my clogged nose to use some extremely powerful bleach to clean all the mould off the inside of our grotty front door!

(Look I know this all sounds a bit depressing but I am genuinely having a nice time, okay)

Even though Jessie isn't very demanding, because of her reactivity, we have to walk in the same park on the same route every day, to keep her (and everyone else) safe and calm. It does get a little monotonous when you're doing all the walks solo. I worry it gets boring for Jessie, but it honestly seems like the park is a new and exciting cacophany of smells for her every day, so at least she's having fun.

There's another little patch of wild land near our house where we can also safely take Jessie, but we have to give the little old lady in red a wild berth — she comes out at the same time every morning to feed bread to an ever growing crowd of crows (every single one of whom Jessie would like to fight/eat)

I got Meera Sodha's new cookbook 'Dinner' for christmas, and I made the parsnip and potato gnocchi, and it was INCREDIBLE (and so much easier than I'd thought)

My partner requested a reprisal of the 'drawing from memory' game, so I decided to celebrate US! (One of the nicest things to celebrate in an otherwise tricky year).

2024 hasn't been the easiest, to be honest.

It's felt mired by physical health issues — endless colds, sprained ankle in summer, nearly re-breaking my toe. 

There's been a lot of dog woe — firstly returning Barley to the shelter after he became aggressive towards me in January, and then after adopting Jessie, grappling with her reactivity for the rest of the year. 

It's been financially stressful — although I am now over a year into owning a house (which should be good), I have never felt more broke. After the unexpected rewire in March (£9000 for one of the most stressful experiences of my life), I have felt like I am constantly playing catch up all year long, and am poised to have to drop another several thousand pounds on some tree destruction early in the new year, which, like the rewire, is wildly expensive with basically no increased enjoyment of living here. 

During summer, I had a couple of months of intense employment uncertainty which only served to increase this anxiety, and frankly left me a bit of a mental health mess, crawling out of a hole of bad eating and lack of self care.

All in all, not my finest year. 

I am hoping for a slightly easier 2025, and I am hoping for a lovely year for all of you, too. Thanks for being with me through it all.