December's been a bit of a mixed bag. Mostly I am just VERY TIRED. Despite being vegan for many years now, my mother still saw fit to suggest that I might be lacking in some essential nutrients. Given that I have survived this long and mostly felt great for the entire nearly-decade, I doubt it, but maybe I should concede and start taking a multi-vitamin.
I maintain that it's some kind of lingering post-COVID physical and/or psychological exhaustion, which doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility... But as always the end of the year is a time for reflection, and I do hope I can spend 2023 doing more stuff that's not just work or sitting in my house (trouble is I do REALLY love sitting in my house)
After several years in the advent calendar wilderness, I finally had MORE than my fair share of goodies. Until I was 30, my mother filled up my childhood advent calendar with treats every year, but at that point she decided it was too difficult to find vegan chocolates that fitted (FINE) and stopped. I think I only had a paper advent calendar for a couple of years, but this year I filled up my old childhood advent calendar with vegan chocolates for me and my housemates to share, my partner got me a chocolate advent calendar of my own, my mum got me a tea advent calendar, I got my partner a coffee advent calendar, and we got the fancy Lily's one for Chase the dog. Finally my desire to open many tiny doors every day is satiated.
Me and my partner went to see the always fun 'Gingerbread city' at the museum of architecture — basically all of London's prominent architectural studios make exciting and elaborate gingerbread buildings around a theme (this year, climate change in different parts of the world). They'd introduced a fun voting system when made it even more enjoyable.
Ate a lotttttt of sprouts this year lads.
I know some of you do this all the time, but I do not know how
Since September I've been an associate lecturer at UAL. When I applied for the role, I expected that I might get, I dunno, one workshop or something, couple of hundred quid on the side, nice. What I did not expect was 10 hours a week from September through to January, which bumped it from 'nice bit of cash on the side' to 'a quite major source of income/drain on my time'. I also got really excited about teaching!
What sucks is that this work is not guaranteed. Sure, for a term they want you for 10 hours a week... Then the next term, there might be nothing. It's basically a zero hours role, and that is bad.
So when a 'real job' came up, and one of my colleagues suggested I apply for it, I figured it would be sensible. The money I've earned since September has totally turned my prospects around, from 'I will probably live in a shared house forever' to 'maybe one day I could buy', and I actually really enjoy the work, which is a bonus. I'd love to do a PGCE and make this a more permanent part of my career life, and this seemed like the perfect chance to do that.
So anyway, I applied, and I got an interview! I think it went quite well. I came across well in the panel interview itself, and had to run a mock teaching session with some real students, which was nervewracking but apparently they rated it very highly. This little drawing was something I made in that session, as I encouraged the students to make a postcard sized piece which summarised their feelings about climate change.
Didn't get it though. And I'm kind of annoyed with myself, because the feedback they gave was that I 'didn't want it enough'. In truth I was very conflicted, because it was a 3 day a week role. I also have a 1.5 day a week role with Geeks for Social Change, and that would have left only a half day for my freelance clients (which is not enough!)
I would much rather it have been a 2.5 or 2 day a week role, and I was honest with them about this, but apparently that was unwise. Oh well, lesson learnt. It's not the end of the world, because I do still have my studio work and freelance clients, but this would have offered me a lot more certainty of income (as all freelancers know, that can vary wildly)
Anyway, they told me really quickly because they wanted me to come to the Christmas Party and not be worrying about whether I'd got the job or not. So instead I went to the Christmas Party and was miserable because I didn't get the job. OH WELL
Even though everyone was very kind about how much they like working with me and how good I am at teaching, my percieved failure totally drained all my energy and I ploughed through the last teaching session of the year in a somewhat zombie-like state.
I was excited to refresh my mind and stop thinking about all of that work stuff by going up to Yorkshire. There were train strikes on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of that week, but I was going to work around them by travelling up on the Monday and back on the Thursday. But then I found out that Northern just weren't running any trains on the Thursday either so I'd be stuck there until the following Sunday or Monday, and I just couldn't face it. I was excited to visit my friend James in Hebden Bridge and see his lovely new house, but honestly, going back to that valley always makes me a bit depressed and I didn't really want to spend that long up there. (Especially knowing I couldn't pop out to Manchester or Leeds at all)
So I grumpily cancelled.
It was around this time that the weather started getting very cold. I had basically decided I've been so tired and worked so hard these last few months that I was going to try and (mostly) stop working from about December 12th onwards, so I was pretty much just counting down the hours at this point.
On my first day off I decided to go for a nice cycle along the river! However I got 5 minutes from my house when temperatures were sub zero before realising I might lose my hands if I kept going.
It was that night that it snowed very heavily. The next day I had planned to embark on the next section of the Capital Ring, which I had tried and failed to start several times previously. It's one of the sections which is furthest away from me and hardest to get to the start point (to the south-east of London) and every time I'd previously tried to start it, I'd been hindered by train strikes or engineering work. The heavy snow meant all trains were cancelled until mid morning, but I was still so grumpy about not getting up to Yorkshire that I was determined to GET OUT and DO SOMETHING with my day, so I just got to London Bridge by tube and waited until trains started going.
I was rewarded with a beautiful snowy walk! The walk was meant to be Falconwood to Grove Park, but when I got to Grove Park, no trains were running back up to central London (as more snow had fallen), so I just kept walking the next section until I reached a train station on a different line (Kent House) where trains were running. I walked a long way, but had a lovely time!
I managed to get a refund on my Yorkshire train ticket, and I decided to spend the money on a spa morning to cheer myself up. Aire Spa is a real fancy one. I like pools more than I like saunas, so this one is great for me. There's only one sauna (like a steam room), and the rest of it is all just a variety of pools of different temperatures and textures to move between. I had a very nice time and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to spend silly money. I'm not sure I felt any different coming out than when I went in, but on balance it did definitely help me calm down a bit.
It was very cold back there, and every year this seems to make my body feel worse. My skin is awful, especially on my hands. I think I have poor circulation, and no amount of moisurising seems able to prevent them from getting horribly dry and cracked. New for this year, also ACHEY and WEAK! Welcome to mid 30s body I guess.
I unexpectedly got to go see the Kew Christmas lights, which was wonderful! You usually have to book months in advance to get tickets, but a friend of friends had a spare going, and I managed to nab it. Lovely people, a lovely walk, and the lights were beautiful. It was minus 5 degrees while we were going round though, so I was quite glad to get back home into the warm at the end of it all.
Got our tree, and the tree salesman threw in a free potted Christmas tree which I now feel an enormous amount of pressure to keep alive until at least next Christmas (my partner will do all the labour though, because they are the green fingered one)
I had promised to do the next section of the capital ring with a friend, so, craving another walk, I instead did the next section of the Wandle trail, from Carshalton to Morden. It was a nice time, and there was still lots of lingering snow around making things pretty!
EMMA HATES WINTER!
Mum came to visit and we handed over our presents to one another.
I'm not the only one who's been achey! Chase always gets a bit stiffer and slower in the winter (at least that's what we've noticed the two winters we've had her), but I felt a vet trip was in order because she had started limping, and also seemed to be needing to pee more. The vet's diagnosis was basically just that she has arthritis and the cold weather might have especially aggravated it. Chase hates going to the vet, and since Charlie died after we mis-dosed his meds, I hate going to the vets too. They wanted to prescribe Chase the same medication that killed Charlie and I got quite upset thinking about it. (And am constantly low key upset thinking about how much longer we have with Chase — not long enough)
Now it was time for the end of Capital ring section 3, and we did 4 as well! I was joined by my friend Ellis who was excited to do the Crystal Palace bit, having spent a lot of time there as a kid. I enjoyed seeing the dinosaurs for the first time ever! There was lots of other nice stuff on this section, including some fancy gardens near Streatham Common which I had no idea existed.
There's a constant need for scrap paper in the Samaritans phone room (it's useful to note down people's names and other details, because there's nothing ruder than forgetting someone's name mid call, but it's surprisingly easy to do!) There are semi regular pleas sent out via email for people to bring in any scrap paper they have which is blank on one side. There's a particularly esoteric mix at the moment, which is pleasing, because I find doodling helps me focus, and it's fun to have some nice source material.
I have tried to do a whole bunch of Samaritans shifts over this period, because I know that, for various reasons in January I won't be able to. We have a somewhat decrepit building near Carnaby street, which flooded in November. The damage is so severe that we haven't been able to return, and are instead being hosted temporarily by a company called Arup, in their basement. It's actually a lot nicer than our regular building but it doesn't really feel like home (and there are a few key issues with it like the lack of bedrooms for night shifts, and the fact that we can't welcome people face to face). It all feels a bit uncertain and weird at the moment.
Still keen to get out and about, I took myself to see the Wellcome Collection's 'In Plain Sight' exhibition, which I really recommend. Their exhibitions are usually free, and combine science, history and art in a way that I don't think anywhere else in London does.
Gettin' cosy.
My favoured Christmas will always be 'cosy at home' and I am lucky that I come under no pressure whatsoever to return to my parents' house (I haven't done so in well over a decade). My partner's mum would probably like it if they went to spend it with her, but they too prefer to remain cosy at home, so we managed it this year. Tasty foods, cute gifts, and I managed to get to Quaker meeting in the morning too. Perfect!
Got some good books for Christmas, and also FINALLY catching up on some of my massive reading pile. (My fault for having a couple of really heavy non-fictions on the go which are taking me forever)
Also yes I KNOW I spent Quartz wrong – I'm sure the Germans have a long word for when you spell something wrong because you were focussing too hard on drawing the typography?!
Another Samaritans shift, another lightly festive doodle.
I have been playing Spiritfarer for an hour or so every night since around October, and it's nearly over, and I'm sad about it! A really beautiful little game that I am quite emotional about.
Me and my partner went to check out the new Battersea Power Station development together. The old control room is now a fancy cocktail bar but you can still twiddle the dials and flick the switches, so that's fun. (The rest of it is just a terrible shopping mall for rich people)
It has been SO nice not to work for a couple of weeks. I've really been able to get a lot of stuff done that just wasn't happening previously, which is a relief.
Today's drawing, December 31st 2022 marks TEN YEARS of visual diarying. I haven't missed a single day!
Kinda wild. I am lucky to have had so many wonderful people along for the ride (the life ride, though also the visual diarying ride). I hope I didn't miss anyone too important...
Thank you for reading these silly blogs, kind words over the years, and for just generally being in my life. I always found it sweet when people would say how excited they were to be featured in my drawings (they're not even very good!)
Onwards... to the next 10 years?!
