...review of 2012

....christmas paper strewn everywhere must mean the year is nearly over. what can i tell you about my year. well, it has been a strange year of change; a bit of a rollercoaster.

it's been a year of babies - the miller babies, peg for pete and j, and jessica for alex and alison - and they have all delighted us! we are now sponsors (kind of like god parents but without god!) for james and matthew. james gets me and matthew gets christine - matthew may have got the lucky break there!

the year started with me working, as i had for some time, at sunderland city council managing a social work team. they were (and still are it would seem) difficult and stressful times. while we all knew they were stressful times one thing that has struck me since moving jobs and now being a lecturer at sunderland university is that while you are in the middle of it you actually have no idea how much stress you are actually working under. looking back i have never experienced anything like it and don't want to experience it again. i think about people at the council a lot and enjoy the facebook craic! life at the university is very different - as you would expect i guess - intense, rather than stressful. the lecturing is quite tiring but very enjoyable. it still feels as though i'm only there on some kind of temporary basis and someone is going to say at some point - right off you go back to where ever you cam from! i work with a lovely group of people and am settling in nicely but it still feels weird after 10 years in the same place.

family life has been great. camper trips, and latitude festival. we had a lovely scottish holiday with lots of walking and cycling. christine insists we are going somewhere hot with a beach next year (we'll see ;-)) certainly the change to a less stressful job has improved family life - i'm a bit less like a bear with a sore head. we've changed cars and luke has changed schools. he's now at framwellgate school and is loving it. it's a big change for him and he has took to it like a duck to water and it seems he's finding the more challenging work more stimulating. he's still up at the farm whenever he can be. christine continues with her studies and continues to steady our ship.... everyone should have a christine!

physically the year has been very up and down! i started off with marathon training and did a quite stirling job of completing the sunderland marathon in about 5 hours (a bit slower than i'd hoped for but i hit the wall at about 21 miles and the last 5 miles was torture!) and immediately after this i was diagnosed with high blood pressure during a routine check prior to my hernia operation. so once we'd sorted out the BP with medication i had my hernia op and spent about 8 weeks lying on the couch and taking it nice and easy while i recovered, i've picked the exercise up and have done a couple of runs (redcar and ripley) and am currently supporting paul with his 12 days of christmas challenge for the percy hedley foundation.

musically the year has been a year of two halves! the start of the year saw two wiseguys playing and recording a lot - and even shooting videos! very exciting! and then after the operation came the summer when we do very little anyway, and then came the change of job - so nothing happened until about a month ago when karl and i resumed rehearsals - and we're up for some early new year gigs. the songwriting is moving away from the strident big bonoesque choruses to a more nu-folk focussed feel. i've dj'd a little this year - notably for joe mcelderry's dad's 50th birthday party! less wedding dj bookings 'cos effectively all of lynne's friends are now married so that rich source of gigs has now dried up lol! circadian rhythms continue to attempt to figure out how to write electronica dance type stuff and with miller, the adventures of chriphen mildue embark on another adventure and are in writing sessions as we speak. i've had a poem 'elements of chalk and cheese' published on a poetry web site which was very exciting "excellent use of metaphor" i was told!

my words for this year were Balanced, Basic, and Bendable
so, balanced - well i certainly feel balanced or on the way to being balanced, as i've said i don't think i had any idea about the levels of stress i was working with and that has been a big change that has had a positive effect on me holistically. if it's about a balance of mind spirit and body i feel i am feeding myself well in all of these areas so i think i'm there with balanced or if not i know what i need to do
basic - well this could be about returning to the essentials - the important things. i really feel that the time off for the op, the change of jobs and taking a decision to do nothing for a while was a positive one and this has helped me reground myself in what is important. a solid foundation.
bendable - i've worked on stretching and a little yoga this year and now i can touch my toes! now that might not seem big but i've never been able to touch my toes - i've always been a bit stiff! this is work in progress but i have certainly made progress this year.

2012 done - 2013 lets see what you bring
happy new year (for when it arrives)