Well, hello there!

If your reading this, then its time again for my annual “How my year went: In review” blog, which started as a monthly(ish) way for me to try and focus more on honing my written skills, and annually as a way to try and condense a whole 365 days worth of feelings into one unweildy long blog, and…then I discovered ‘Letterboxd’ so…now its just a fun annual bonus. and to be honest; when it came to 2024, I debated whether to write one of these at all…

Not because it was a depressing year or anything. But moreso that, everything thats happened this year has basically been at the forefront of my social media presence. So I feel like putting it all down here seems a bit pointless…Anyone who’s invested enough to read a multi page “Year in review” blog from some random English guy on the internet, is probably invested enough to have read the various community posts I’ve done on youtube, the updates i’ve posted in my Discord group, or the actual shout outs i’ve done about progress on the various live streams i’ve done through the year, or in my reviews themselves.

But, I figured it would probably act as a good ‘end point’/’epilogue’ to cap off the year with an overview of what my last 12 months has been like on all fronts. Mainly so I can just link people to this if they ask how my year went, rather than having to bust out the ‘lore’ guides!

So! 2024! a year essentially swallowed by life events. and not much else! We bought a house! and its time for me to tell you the ‘full’ story!

So, I suppose a little bit of back story is required for this one. I’ve been with my partner now for around thirteen and a half years (tweleve and a half where this story begins) and about 4 years ago, I took part in a project at my workplace whereby they garnish (upto) £300 from your monthly salary for either 3 or 5 years. and, assuming you dont touch it for the duration of your investment period, they not only guarentee the money they take, but they’ll add onto it an extra 20% if you sit out the full 3 or 5 year period. Its a bit of a scam because my workplace has a LUDICROUSLY high turnover rate, but 3 years seems like a not unreasonable amount of time to have a job for. So I decided to take part in it. and, in March of 2024 it came to fruition.

Now, me and my partner had been talking about finally biting the bullet and getting a place together for a number of years. But, if your a long time reader of these blogs (god bless you <3) you’ll know that my partner has several disabilities, both mental and physical that meant that looking for a place was a bit of a non starter for a while, and while my job keeps me comfortable, it wasnt really good enough to save up ‘deposit on a house’ level income…Not without basically giving up every other thing I enjoy in the process…So this investment piece at work seemed like a good way to save a bundle, without having to worry about my sticky fingers dipping into the jar (seriously, its a pain in the ass to end it earlier, and im WAY to lazy to fuck around trying to close an account early.)

So! in December of 2023, with just 3 months left on my 3 year plan. I went to my partner and suggested that 2024 was probably going to be the best chance we’d have of making a go of living together. There were other factors as well, my partner had become increasingly unhappy in her living arrangements, she had a nice apartment space, but it was rented, the decor hadnt been updated in decades and had literally just been walloped with white paint when she first moved in 6 years prior…so it was looking shabby…But more importantly, she wanted a change, she wanted more space, a garden, a nice community to live in that wasnt constantly being reported to the police (In the 6 years she lived there, the complex had had the police called out for (in no particular order) 3 counts of arson, 2 murders, AT LEAST 3 suicides, several car thefts/damages to cars and a dozen or so public assault charges…and thats only the stuff we SAW/know happened…GOD knows what went on behind closed doors.) As you can imagine, being mentally and physically unwell in that kind of an environment wasnt ideal.

So. We agreed. The plan was to start looking from February of 2024, with the rest of December and January basically being used to tie off all the fucking DREADFUL business that happened in 2023, and to inform folks that we were officially looking to move in together. Christmas ’23 went about as well as it could have gone given the circumstances, January was all a bit of a blur really, I spent a good chunk of my time trying to get as many youtube videos for the channel over the line as possible ahead of February, because I knew that once we got stuck into house stuff, I wasnt seeing the light of my editing console for a WHILE.

We started planning up what we were looking for in a property, putting hard lines in on what we would and wouldnt accept in a house, and around the second week of February, we started looking. We ultimately only went to around 4-5 viewings. most were unremarkable honestly. 3 of them were basically just not the right fit for us, whether it was rooms that were too small or that the work involved in getting them to a standard we’d want to live with would cost too much. Our 2nd to last viewing was VERY promising, it was a 2 story semi detached house that was home to a young couple who both ran small businesses, She worked in organic vegetable productiona and homeopathy, he was in a successful local band and did production work on the side.

Why am I telling you this? Because the garden on that place was HUGE, and they’d converted the loft (attic) space into a fully fledged recording studio. It was a match made in heaven…Until we made an offer and got laughed out of the room by the real estate company selling the property, because when they put ‘offers in the range of’ on the listing. APPARENTLY, that means ‘We wont accept less than the listed price. and to be honest, adding ten grand onto whats listed on the site wont win it either.’ It was already kind of out of our budget. But that basically FULLY took it off the table. Which in some ways was for the best, because the next (and final) listing we checked, turned out to be a perfect fit.

At the end of February we landed on the home we were ultimately looking for. imperfect, but absolutely fixable. leading up to it, my partner had been considering widening our net and travelling further afield to find bigger spaces. But a hard line I had is I didnt want to go *too* far away from my family. We’ve always been quite close and after everything that had gone on last year, moving 30-45 minutes away by car from them was a bit too far for me. Things did get a little tense for a while until…well, the place im typing this now from showed up.

It was about 10-15 minutes away by car from most of my families places. But equally it was only about 15-20 minutes away from my partners families homes too. meaning it was really handy for keeping in touch with folks and being able to help out if needs be. It also meant that we were both only about 5-10 minutes away from where we were both living at the time too! Which made moving a LOT easier, AND meant we could loop the family in to help if we were running thin on the ground.

It was located in one of the more ‘prestige’ parts of the city, with two main roads not far away meaning we could basically go anywhere in the city in 20 minutes or less, without having to take shortcuts or worry about getting stuck in traffic.

Moreover, the place was on the market at a bit of a discount because it was being sold as a ‘fixer upper’, but not because it had huge holes in the roof, or asbestos carpet or anything like that…it was just VERY very old, had no modernisations and needed a bit of love and attention to help really drag it kicking and screaming into the 2020’s. It seemed like an ‘intermediate’ gambit. The kind of place where, we wouldnt be able to move in right away, but the level of skill required to ‘fix’ it seemed like it would be something we could have a genuinely good go at. With the possibility of ending up with a really cozy and welcoming place, that *could* in theory net us a tidy profit in the future if we DID decide to sell up (modernised houses in the area were selling for between 45 and 60k more than what we were potentially going to pay)

We spoke about it for a week, went to a second viewing, and decided to go for it. and after a little bit of haggling. The offer was accepted and this…well, this is really where things got a bit ‘nutty’.

When people ask me and my partner how we found going through the house buying process, my partner, without hesitation will say that its been the single worst experience she’s had in her entire life…and given that at LEAST a year of that lived experience includes multiple attempts to end her own life and half a dozen stays in a psychiatric facility…I sincerely hope that puts across just how MUCH she has hated the last 12 months. I on the other hand will jokingly say that I’ve had a really nice time with all of this, it’s just my partner thats been the problem! #redflag.

In all seriousness, my partners mental health issues effect her particularly when it comes to ‘Autonomy’, basically the idea that someone else is telling her what to do, at what time and how it needs to be done, makes her spiral into angry outbursts, deep depression, anxiety and…theres no other word for it, a deeply sad despair. And the one thing you probably should know if your going to buy a house is that for AT LEAST 4-6 months of the process, your life isnt your own. Your life belongs to the banks, the real estate agents and any tradespeople/surveyours/solicitors that happen to find you along the way.

By the end of the first week of the process, my partner was burnt out. We still had 5 months of paperwork, meetings, mortgage securments and more to talk through. NON of which could be done solely by myself because we were co-buying the place. During her calmer moments, she would tell me that she knew this all needed to be done, and that we were ultimately doing the right thing. But, without fail, every. single. time. ANYTHING. would come in that required actions from both of us, even if it was just signing a letter that we didnt even need to read, or even just saying ‘yes.’ on a phone call. My partner would death spiral, cry, scream, hurt herself, shut down. refuse to engage or co-operate. And it was hard, because…Banks, solicitors and real estate agents DONT fuck around unless its them doing the fucking. they’d set hard dates, threaten to call the whole thing off if we didnt provide evidence/information by set dates. and…all I could really do is essentially DRAG my partner over the finish line by hell or high water, sometimes with just minutes to spare.

It was a VERY difficult time for both of us, I was simultaineously my partners best friend, and the person she dreaded most for a while because she knew whenever i’d call her, it was because I needed her to sign off on something. The process seemed endless, and things went TRUELY off the rails in a BIZARRE moment when, 4 months into us doing paperwork, the owners of the property basically rocked up, shrugged and said ‘hey, y’know the deeds to the place you want to buy? yeh. cant find them lol.’ Let me tell you now, I thought I was raging, my partner was bereft. But the email from our solicitors AND the real estate agents (Who are supposed to be on THEIR side) that basically amounted to ‘Well, you better fucking find them dipshit’ was border unprofessional…and they were one of the more reputable solicitors, estate agents in the city. they. were. PISSED. Because, in the UK, if you cant find the deeds to the place you want to sell, it basically means ANYONE could rock up and claim to own the place, and if they had enough evidence to back it up. the law would be on their side. Insurance companies wont insure houses like that and it would have made the property value basically a moot point. We wouldnt have bought it without the deeds because it was WAY too much of a risk.

That email seemingly put a nuke up their asses because less than 18 hours later, their ‘What can ya do rofl!’ attitude turned REAL fucking quickly into ‘We’ve torn the house apart and found it, please dont pull out of this deal.’

And! it all worked out, the last of the paperwork was completed on July 1st, we were given a ‘key handover’ date of the 12th! and with the extra couple of weeks we had between the last of the paperwork and the start of the renovation work I ploughed every free hour I had into getting as many youtube videos for the channel for between September and December done and out the door (because again; when the FUCK am I gonna find time to do them after July?!)

Now for the plot twist, remember how I mentioned earlier that the house was a ‘fixer upper’? Well. We assumed that would be some minimal work, ripping down old wallpaper, taking up old carpets, replastering, minor electric and gas works…We had a budget of 24k from 10 years of on and off savings to work with. We figured we’d underspend given what we could see…We were wrong.

Because y’see, construction on the house began in 1963, It was put on the market in 1966, was purchased in 1970 and the same couple lived in this house from then, until their unfortunate passing at the end of 2023. In that time almost NOTHING had been done to the house to modernise, improve or safetify it. What does that mean in real terms? Well. it means the electricity was installed in 1968, there was no fuse box, just a wall of random black boxes all along the cloak room with bright yellow DANGER! stickers attached to them, best we can see they were last checked in 1992 and hadnt been checked for safety since.

It meant that the gas feed into the house was installed using lead piping that curved in several places (apparently a major no no as lead erodes over time making a gas leak VERY likely), It means some rooms didnt have radiators, they had gas line fed heaters that we were assured by our gas technician ‘Would kill anyone who struck a match near them’.

And it meant that almost all of the rooms were in some degree of degredation. Its a 3-4 bedroom house and the most modern room in the whole place was the kitchen (which we *think* was refreshed at some point in 2002/03) followed closely by the bathroom which we think was 2000/01. All the other rooms had either been decorated twice (once in the early 70s, and then papered over in the mid to late 80s, with just a lick of paint going every decade or so to keep it ‘fresh’) or, in some cases, it had NEVER been redecorated past its initial wallop (what is now our bedroom, literally was plastered, painted eggshell blue in the early 70s, papered in the late 80s and then wasnt touched again till we got to it)

The oldest room in the house was probably last touched in 1987 (based on what evidence we could find) and compounding the issue, it looked like, for at *least* the last 15 years, anytime anything broke, or ripped, or needed repairing; it was stuck down with blutak, if it wouldnt STAY stuck down, they’d nail it down, and if THAT didnt work they went for the cheapest, lowest quality possible fix to just, get the job done in a way that meant it couldnt be said that it was STILL broke.

All I know about the previous occupants is that they were elderly (80s), didnt leave the house much and had vision issues. I dont want to cast aspurtions, but what we found made me feel quite sad honestly…

But, back to the main story. So we got the keys on the 12th of July, we got in, looked around, started to plan and the next day we had an electrician drop in because, we didnt want to do ANYTHING until we KNEW the electrics were safe to use. Friend, when I tell you I havent heard a cackle HALF as dirty as that electrician gave when he looked at our setup. He looked at it, stood back agog. went in for a closer look, touched it with a pen to test live wiring, cackled multiple times and said ‘you didnt have any plans to move in soon did you?’

It turns out that the ENTIRE house and garage was live. as in, you touch the socket the wrong way, your gonna meet Jesus. NOT helping matters, it seems that the husband had a passion for doing his own DIY electric works, and had just run live, unsheilded wiring ALL OVER THE HOUSE AND GARAGE STRAIGHT FROM THE MAINS. We laugh now, we could have died…or at the very least burned the house down. In short, the entire house needed to be fully rewired, that involved getting all the wallpaper and carpets up ASAP, for work that was estimated as taking (roughly) 2 months to complete (it ultimately ended up taking 3 months) and for a month and a half of that we would be completely without power or heating.

On top of that, we also had to bring in a gas engineer and plumber to remove 2 gas powered heaters from rooms in the house because of gas leak risks AND we had to have him disconnect an old 80s gas fireplace from the living room as it TOO was apparently set to either gas us, or blow us up (it hadnt been used in decades). This guy ALSO had to install radiators all through the house, because someone at some point had smashed up all the thermostats on them, meaning they were permanently stuck on the highest setting. AND mangled all the pipes so they were leaking…Not to mention that the radiators themselves were AT LEAST 35 years old, one of them was at least 40.

So. we began work, My partner was basically comatose after the paperwork, so I largely led the ‘tear the fucking house down’ side of the work, every day after I finished at my job, i’d go down to the house for 4-5 hours with a hammer, a chisle, a wallpaper steamer, a scraper and a box cutter, and i’d hammer the absolute fuckery out of the place. This was my life, every day for (at least 4.5 months). On the weekends, if she was well enough, my partner would join me in trying to clear some of the rooms, my mum and sister very kindly offered to help too. we amassed a bowl full of blutak, a bucket full of nails ranging from the 60s through to fairly recently, I bled, sweat and damn near killed myself AT LEAST 3 times stripping this house back to the brickwork and floorboards. But by the end of August, we’d just about done it. Which then revealed other problems.

It turns out that, while the house had been decorated once or twice in its 60 years of existence…it hadnt been plastered since 1969. As a result, every single room we went into, the second we tried to take the wallpaper off with the steamer, the wall would just collapse into a sheet of smashed plaster, revealing the bare brick behind. It was a mess. But, it also meant the budget we had allocated for plastering works skyrocketed. That combined with the other unexpectedly high cost of having some bricklayers come round to brick up a large front window, a small side window and to fill in some gaps in the brickwork in our attic basically SUPER drained our funds in ways we didnt really expect.

In late August, the rewiring work began in tandem with the gas and plumbing works. we went into september with no power and no heating. Work continued. we focussed our attention on rubbish removal, taking five 5 TON skips worth of rubble and household waste away. Which was another cost we’d underestimated.

In this time we’d also booked in a plasterer for a weeks work to resurface and skim the entire house. Which in turn led to another issue. Y’see, the thing about plaster is, once it goes on the wall, it needs a warm, dry environment in order to properly dry out so that you can paint or paper it. This is England in mid September, we have no heating or power, the weather is cold and raining 95% of the time and the humidity doesnt drop below 78%. So now, on top of being cold and only being able to use hand tools, the air is wet to the point of tasting chunky and we CANNOT dry the house. No matter what we try to do. This then starts pushing things back. We cant get the plumber back in to finish the radiator works because the walls wont dry, the electrician cant finish the works till the walls are at least dry enough to not pose a safety risk.

By early october, after 3-4 weeks of DESPERATELY trying to dry the place, we manage to get it 75% of the way there, or at least dry enough that the electrician and gas/plumber man were happy to just finish up their works. And by mid to late October, we had the power back on and…no heating still…the main reason being that we wanted to paint the walls before the radiators went on, because we knew we wouldnt have the bandwidth to do that during the winter…so we agreed to leave getting the heat back on until we painted all the radiator walls which we estimated would take about 2-3 weeks.

What we DIDNT know at the time, was that apparently the plumber HAD set the central heating unit to give us hot water…However, because the previous owners had got someone in who wired the boiler up incorrectly, we ended up not having heating OR hot water through this entire process. and let me tell you, the only thing worse than having to work in a house approaching freezing tempratures…is having to clean 3 brushes 3-4 rollers, 3 paint trays and all manner of mixers, stirrers and smaller brushes in ICY cold water for sometimes up to half an hour at a time because wall paint doesnt come off easily in ICY cold water.

Entering the painting stage, my partner decided to re-enter the ring. And, it was abject torture for her, a sensory nightmare, she couldnt stand being cold, she couldnt stand being up a ladder because she doesnt like heights. She didnt like the threat to her autonomy for having to paint 9 walls in two weeks. She didnt LIKE painting walls (she initially agreed because she liked painting, but found house painting to be completely different from the canvas) She felt ill through the entire experience, she had multiple mental breakdowns, one so severe she basically dissapeared from the project for a week and I had to rope family into fill in the gaps. This was arguably her lowest point, im grateful for the work that she did because she really pushed herself well beyond breaking point, and had their been any other way, i’d have told her to stay out of it. But we were at a crunch period. we’d burnt through 22k of our 24k budget up to this point and there was still TONS to do.

So, we kind of broke ourselves a bit to get it over the line. And on the 30th of October, with only 6 hours to spare, we finished it. Got the plumber in to get the radiators on and we dissapeared for Halloween…The radiators wouldnt work. The plumber left us saying they were working, and they were! until they didnt. I damn near killed a british gas agent when he kept me on the phone for 90 MINUTES promising me an emergency gas repair man would come out to us ASAP to resolve the issue at a £300 charge (+ parts and £60 an hour labour) only to THEN be told that ‘ASAP’ here means 3-4 business days even though we had someone in the house who was disabled and effected by the cold. Seriously FUCK British Gas. and we had to rebook our plumber in to fix it (at cost) with a week and a half wait. On the phone to our plumber, he mentioned that we definitely should have hot water, So I got our electrian back in who THEN revealed that YES! we COULD have had hot water for the last 2-3 months, but because of the botched wiring job on the boiler, we didnt! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*Cries*

Through a sheer act of kindness, he agreed to rewire the boiler correctly at no charge, and then, it all came together. the radiators randomly kicked back in, we had hot water in the taps. it was early November and we quite literally were cooking with gas!

The rest of November was the home stretch, I spent most of it painting ceilings and block rolling the walls with paint while my partner cut in on the edges. we had a joiner come in to fit all new doors downstairs to replace the ones with holes punched through them and door handles missing that must have been there since the late 80s. As we started to wrap up, I made my partner take more rests while I doubled down to try and get stuff over the line. The carpets went in in mid November, followed immediately by our new bed. and this leads us to ANOTHER b-plot.

See, While all the house crazy was going on, from September through to the end of November I helped my partner move all of her stuff from a 2nd floor apartment with no elevators to a storage locker 2 miles away from the apartment, and then from that locker into our home. the staircase at my partners apartment complex was outdoors, with no covering, it was mossy, tight and given this was the tail end of August through to mid October, it rained. A LOT. I got soaked through on many an occasion, my partner (who was already in the midst of a breakdown over the paperwork) was basically dying on her arse at this point, there’d be days where she could advise on what needed packing where, what needed to be thrown away, and what order to pack things…And days where she’d basically gesture at a room, scream cry about it being ‘too much to think about’ and she’d just leave me to it to get it gone. Honestly, thinking back, im amazed she was able to do so much in her condition. and im even more amazed at just how much we got done in such a narrow window of time.

Why is this relevent to the story? Well, because the landlords who rented the apartment to my partner were part of a charity network that aims to offer housing to vulnerable people. my partner qualified as a vulnerable person, and it was around the middle of September we encountered an issue…y’see, it turns out that this charity had NO policy in place for people wanting to leave their apartment…the assumption was if you were there, you were there till you WERNT there (if you catch my drift). and they basically had no system in place for someone just…moving out. the default position was that if you told them you had bought a house, you had 24 hours to pack your shit and leave. and we just couldnt work to those timelines as, as you’ve probably figured from this blog entry. My partner basically started self harming if she was asked to confirm her identity on a phone call just so that I could deal with the ACTUAL reason for the call. it would have been impossible to clear an entire apartment completely out in 24 hours even if we were BOTH fully able bodied and mentally well. I wont go into detail about how managed to circumvent this rule. But I will say that we had some very good people on our side, and that human kindness is a rare and wonderful thing these days.

it was the last week of September, we were exhausted, but we emptied the apartment into the locker, and my partner came to stop with me for what was initially supposed to be 4 weeks (it ended up being 6) My apartment was TINY. big enough barely for 1…nowhere near big enough for 2. and given the high pressure we were coming out of. as you can imagine. it was not a fun time. BUT! we tried to smooth things over with plenty of movies through October and clinging to the idea that this would all be a distant memory come December.

And lo! by mid November, the bed went in, and my partner agreed (somewhat reluctently) to go down to the house for a week or two to try and settle things in while I began to empty MY apartment.

Late November to me was an absolute blur. my average day would be spent working 8:30am till 5:30pm then spending 2 hours packing my own stuff up, having an evening meal, bringing my stuff down to the house, then heading over to the locker for 8:30pm to cram AS MUCH stuff as I could fit into my car, into my car. before getting back to the house for 9:30pm(ish) where i’d spend till 1-2am unloading boxes from my car into the house and trying to find their appropriate home. I’d get home between 2-3am where i’d have to tie off my own shit, before getting ready to wake up at 8:30am the next day and do it ALLLL over again, while my partner started unpacking and moving some of the boxes around during the afternoons (she was very much trying to recover from burnout during this time). The weekends were considered a blessing, because it meant I could do multiple trips to the locker AND bring more of my stuff down to the house, uniterrupted between the hours of 10am – 3am. IT. WAS. NUTS. and I hope to GOD I never have to do it again, or I swear it may ACTUALLY kill me.

I moved out of my place on the 28th of November 2024. my partner had been living at the house for just over a week and a half by this point, and essentially between the 29th of November and the 19th of December, we were unpacking. We did the essentials first, furniture, heavy stuff like sofas and hard wood storage came in first, we had a joiner come in and put us all new doors upstairs and a full set of shelving for my office room to house my film collection. Once that was in place I was able to unpack my movies (which you can watch LIVE right here!) and then it was basically everything else, as and when we found things. on the 19th of December, I swapped from unpacking, to cleaning, we wiped all the excess plaster from the windows, sweapt and mopped all the floors, we got a TV mounted to the living room wall, along with several sets of curtain poles fitted. Me and my partner both agreed that after the 23rd of December, we’d down tools for the year, and that would be that.

And. On the 24th of December. We did just that. We didnt touch a goddamn THING till the W/C 6th of January this year. and honestly, that 2 weeks break was frankly lifechanging. I have NEVER appreciated rest so much in my entire life. I have done FUCK ALL since the 24th of December other than occasionally doing a bit of cleaning and trying to get my office/film room setup even more perfect. and I have ZERO regrets on that. My partner needed this even more than me, she’s still not well, it’s…going to take some time for her to fully recover from this, but she’s better than she was.

And thats…kind of where things have been left, current status is ‘Big jobs have all been done, we’re about 75% of the way unpacked, we still have some small random jobs to do to the place in the immediate future. but otherwise, we’re prettifying the house now until it gets warm enough to tackle the garden.

We ended up going about 2 grand over budget ultimately…I mean, when it comes to house reno work, where do you even stop the tally? technically we have works that still need to be done, but they arnt anywhere near as urgent as ‘get power to the house’ or ‘get rid of that gas device that could blow the houseup’…So we’ll deal with them in time.

I dont think I fully anticipated the ups and downs of renovating a home, and home ownership for that matter. I knew it could be intense at times, but I didnt *quite* realise just HOW intense it could be. I get a comfort in knowing that the monthly payments I make now will ultimately mean this place will be ours by the end of it.but in the same breath, I have a ‘to do’ list on this place longer than the gangees honestly. But! I have a lifetime to do it in…so…yay? I guess?

In all seriousness, despite the stress, HUGE financial cost and struggles, Im incredibly grateful to be as privilaged as we were in being able to buy this place, and i’d say if you can, do it. But be prepared, because even the nicest places could have HUGE things going on just underneath the walls…

I know I usually go here, there and everywhere with these blogs, but this house has basically been my last 13 months or so. Thats been my year, one big lifechanging event for good (I hope) that has really taken the sting out of a bastard of a year that was 2023. I will however for prosperity do my other usual updates.

On the Job/Work front, theres not been a whole lot to report. When I last spoke to you, i’d just been introduced to a new manager and I was still trying to find my footing to figure things out. Well; January to September could best be described as ‘tepid’ on that front. my manager seemed to think I had some kind of confidence issue (despite me telling her I do this in my spare time) so she decided to put me forward for any and all speaking opportunities within the business..Whether I wanted to do it or not. See, the thing is, I can speak enthusiastically about something I love. I can put the razzle dazzle on, no trouble. But I cant fake it. So her putting me up to talk about projects I had NO love for, that actually were likely to cause me a lot of trouble in the form of either MORE work coming my way, OR things that would overcomplicate the job I already do…Well, as you can imagine I was having a ‘great.’ time.

I also started to hear murmured rumblings from my boss trying to encourage me to (voluntarily) return to the office one day a week. Which I tried to bat away as much as I could (my job literally has no function that would benefit from an office presence…Even before covid I worked from home 3-4 days a week because I just, wasnt needed on site…)So that added to the anxiety a bit. The worst part of it came when my boss decided I needed to raise my profile to HER boss, so she started making me present all my projects to her, whether they were ready to go or not…she made it sound like me NOT getting my face in front of her boss was the difference between me keeping and losing my job. Made all the worse, when her boss got the wrong end of the stick on one of my projects and thought I was doing something externally to raise the companies social media presence. So I suddenly got propelled into senior manager meetings where they wanted to hear all about my ‘social media tips & tricks’…my guy, I suggested setting up a ‘workplace’ group page for our team to raise awareness of what we do…Im not Kylie Jenner.

It gets even better really, because just over a month after than instance, in early October, my boss announced she was leaving the business, and HER boss announced she was taking early retirement and leaving the business also. Thus rendering my March – October of trying to butt kiss up to people who literally didnt give a shit, when *I* literally didnt give a shit, but was made to. Ultimately pointless…There was no point building ANY of those false relationships and a whole year at work near enough was ultimately for naught 🙂 *Scream*

Well! Things do have a happyish ending I guess. In November my Boss left her role, I was assigned a new manager who ONE day before she was supposed to take up the reins, suddenly couldnt anymore…So I got ANOTHER manager who had me for a whole TWO WEEKS, where at least a week of that, I was on vacation…Before I got back to find it had been decided without consulting me to move me COMPLETELY OUT of my current team, into a whole new department, with ANOTHER new manager…But I was keeping my existing job role, title, pay etc…For those of you who have been keeping track over the last few years. Not including managers who had me for a day or less (theres been a couple of those now…) That makes my latest manager, manager #11…in 6.5 years…That works out at near enough 1.7 managers a year at this point…or VERY nearly one manager every 6-7 months. I swear its not me…Honest…

I’ve been with the new team now for coming up to 3 months, and its been kind of unremarkable, but nice. for the first time in a LONG time, im surrounded by neurodiverse people who gel with my vibe, which, I dont think i’ve had that kind of working relationship now in AT LEAST 2-3 years…they’re essentially a bit of a crisis team, when the bat signal goes up, they’re first on the scene. But that suits my style quite nicely and…So far at least, if this is how its going to be, I could get used to this quite nicely! Though, as always my place of work is renowned for sudden mass redundancies with no rhyme or reason and everyone on the chopping block…Soooo…as with every year, if im still here by this time next year in the same conditions, I’ll consider it a BIG win.

Has there been anything else significant to me and my world this year? I got into the Youtube Partner programme after 7.5 years of making movie reviews. Im honestly super proud of that. Yes im making (approx) 0.10p-0.30p a day and at this rate it’ll be 3 months before I get my first paycheque of £60…But Y’know what? anything that takes money OFF youtube and puts it into MY hands is alright by my book…

We had 2 elections…one a bit shit, in the sense that it kicked an evil EVIL group of bastards out of office…but replaced them with a group of people who’s idea of a ‘significant revolution’ is taking welfare away from disabled people and forcing the mentally ill into caring roles…

And the other?…well…we all know about the other…so the less said about that the better.

Im not gonna lie…the political landscape is FUCKING bleak right now…It can at times feel all a bit hopeless, but im trying to pull back and think of the bigger picture, that im here, and then gone in the blip of an eye. nothing matters *ultimately* other than the here and now, so as long as I ensure I have a tomorrow. Im sure as hell going to have a today. and I advise you do the same.

Oh! and for those of you who read of my tales of woe in 2023 with my sinuses, the medication worked, and continues to work! am I 100% back to how I was and pitch perfect in every way? No. but i’d kind of prepared for that…But! the sore throat stuff now only happens if I well and TRUELY TRY to run my throat into the ground, my sinusses are much less inflamed, I can breath freely and in the last few months, I think the swelling has reduced significantly, as my partners commented that i’ve stopped snoring. So…y’know! I’ll take 90% cured over whatever the hell happened to me in ’23!

And that…rather simply, was 2024…the year of ‘house’. What will 2025 bring to the table? I couldnt even begin to guess in my wildest ravings…But heres some things i’d like to do.

*I’d like to get back into pacing out making my show on youtube how I used to do the show between 2017 and 2022. Where production is slow and year round, the last two years, its been just cramming as much editing into the free time I had as possible, it takes the fun out of it. So this year? I want to use the fact I have a lot more space and free time to take my time in making the show, get a good backlog going and hopefully have fun with it this year.

*I’d like to FINALLY release my ‘After Dark: Volume 2’ set. I wrote those scripts in October/November of 2023 with the hope of getting it out there in time for Valentines 2024…THAT didnt happen! So its the first thing to tackle on my dock right now…In fact, by the time you read this (and with a bit of luck) it should already be underway! I’d also like to write and possibly even record my next audio book for a 2026 release this year. it wont be erotica, but im not firmed up on what I *would* like it to be just yet.

*I’d like to do more collaborations if I can, every year I try to work with as many folks as I can, but I always feel like I can do more! So if you have a video in mind, feel free to hit me up!

*I want to try and get on top of the garden this year, with all the ‘in house’ stuff going on since we got the keys, the garden got TOTALLY neglected. we tried to hire a gardener in in September to try and tame some of the more aggressively grown plants…but they basically kept cancelling on us and ultimately went radio silent from the end of November…essentially; as soon as it starts getting warmer in March, I want to be out there trimming, pruning, mowing, junking and jetwashing the crap out the garden because, to my next point…

*I want to have an enjoyable summer. Thats probably my biggest hope for this year, last summer I was sweating my tits off steaming walls in 36 celcius weather, with no home comforts and every day was a work day, or a job day. This year, I want to get all our jobs out of the way as soon as possible, so that I can spend the summer lounging in the back garden in my hammock, going for decent walks with the missus, racking up some decent hitters on ‘Pokemon Go’ and i’d like to go on a few daytrips too if I can find the time…Nothing astounding, but It’s been a year or two now since I’ve been to the beach, and last time I went it was raining…It’d be nice to go again in good weather.

and, as a final LONG range forecast…I’d like to have a chilled christmas next year. This year we were hammer and tonging it until 10pm on December 23rd…and while everything after that was nice and chilled out, we missed basically all the pre-gaming leading up to christmas. The decorations were thrown up in a rush, the christmas food shop was done in a panic, we didnt get much time to watch many christmas films until after christmas because we had so many jobs to do. Hell, I didnt get my film collection back until the morning of the 19th of December…I usually enjoy baking around christmas, making pumpkin pies, cookies, nice treats to give as gifts, I like to buy new decorations and spend time crafting the christmas ‘look’ for the house…This year it was whatever was available to hand + a lot of panic shopping, hell, because we went over budget on the house, we couldnt afford gifts for anyone…which was upsetting…So December 2025? I want to have the MERRIEST fucking christmas this side of lapland!

So! yeh! that was 2024, By no means a bad year…a stressful one, a busy one, but ultimately a rewarding one. As far as years go…i’d say this one was up there, and I can only hope that my 2025, like your 2025, will be a fun, pleasent, safe and happy one.

*TYTDan x