A review of 2018

Happy New Year! It’s that time again - here’s my review of life on this spinning rock in space for the last 12 months.

Sadly, I spluttered and failed in my blog writing - after starting the year well, I ended up doing just 41 posts in 2018. This is better than 2016 though (when I only managed 26), so that's something. Really must try harder!

Family
There have been big changes in the JC household this year. Firstly, no. 1 son went to high school, which was a big deal. It had been an incredibly stressful and worrying time leading up to the September term, but once the dust settled we were pleasantly surprised (and relieved). Our eldest has settled in really well and is doing great, thank goodness. Secondly, we started looking after some children as we started preparing and exploring fostering. We've been volunteering with a charity that helps to provide respite care for families who are struggling to cope (but are not serious enough to warrant social services involvement). This has involved looking after babies / toddlers for a day or two on an ad hoc basis. It has been a varied experience and we are still figuring out what works best for us, but at the moment we still feel fostering is the right way forward (but it may take a while before we're ready to start actually doing it).

Faith
It feels like my faith has stagnated recently. I can't quite think of any 'wow' moments I've had in the last year, but I've had plenty of occasions of doubt and questioning. You might argue I have a belief that's collapsing but I've always had a strong underpinning of faith that has thankfully kept me grounded. I am confident that God is real and loving ... I just feel distant from Him a lot of the time. Even so, I keep pushing ahead.

It's been just over a year since I became a deacon at church and that has proven interesting. It does take a chunk out of my time, but I do feel like I'm doing something useful to help the church.

Travel
We had one foreign trip this year, travelling to our favourite campsite in the Vendee in France. It was a nice time but sadly I think maybe the kids are too grown up to go again (esp. no. 1 son). We'll see.

We spent a weekend at Crealy Theme Park in Devon. We had fun, but it was quite small compared to other parks (like Legoland, for instance) and we'd pretty much had enough by lunchtime on the second day.

Lastly, in August we travelled to Oxford to see the in-laws.

Not much in terms of travel this year (although I did a couple of trips for work, which I've mentioned below). 2019 will see us going to France twice no less, as we first go on a big family holiday and then go to Wifey's brother's wedding. Should be fun. We're also hoping to do a proper London trip again sometime in 2019, as well as a jaunt up to Yorkshire.

Movies I've seen
I managed just over 90 films in 2018. This was less than my prefered target of 100, but hey ho. Trying to watch two films a week is actually quite difficult (especially if I want to watch other stuff on TV). My favourite films of 2018 are (in no particular order):
- Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
- Ready Player One
- They Shall Not Grow Old
- Annihilation
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
- Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
I don't feel like this year's films were particularly good. Most of them were OK – with the exception of Ralph Breaks the Internet, which is the worst film I've seen for a long time. It's a cynical, soulless insult to filmmaking and is an insult to the first film, which I loved.

TV I've watched
In 2018, Wifey and I watched a fair amount of stuff on Netflix. We've been working through the excellent Homeland as well as the third series of Kimmy Shmidt. We did record the second series of The Handmaid's Tale and started watching the first few episodes but we found it so depressing and too close to home we stopped watching it for a while. It is a really well-made show, and we are planning to start watching it again. Our new comedy show is 'The Good Place' which is a great concept with some brilliant performances, but we've also started rewatching 'Friends', that old staple of Friday night TV back in the 90s. It's a bit of nostalagia trip watching Ross and co. living in a forgotten time when there were no mobile phones, internet or Trump – which is kind of comforting.
When I'm at home at lunchtimes, I often try to catch an episode of Community, where all six seasons are on All4 online. It's a great watch, very funny.

Books I've read
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Going into this, I was acutely aware of the cultural tropes and clichés associated with this eponymous character. The Prince of Darkness has appeared in everything from movies to comics to music and yet, the most well-known tropes are far removed from Stoker’s original tale. Francis Ford Copolla’s 1992 movie version tried to be faithful to the source material (but even then added in a love story that doesn’t appear in the book as well as much more gore). It’s therefore difficult to read this book without the influence of all that cultural baggage. Still, it's a gripping read in places and an interesting window into attitudes towards darkness and evil from the time.

The Cosmic Trilogy by CS lewis
Epic in scope, this science fiction series by the renowned Christian author is very different to the children's Narnia series. Probably best described as hard, mid-century sci-fi – it is sometimes difficult to follow but you can't help feeling you're reading something truly genius. The first book is a fairly straightforward 'Earthman visits aliens on Mars' story (written much like its contemporaries), while the second is a psychadelic tale of the same man visiting Venus and getting into some kind of cosmic / spiritual battle. Finally, book three takes another right turn and gives an account of a fascist organisation taking over a college in Cambridge with ambitions to dupe the British public for nefarious means (oh, and it's got Merlin from King Arthur in it too).

How to stop time by Matt Haig
A very clever and interesting tale about a man who ages ever so slowly and as a result has lived for centuries. This makes life difficult, especially when superstitious peasants start to wonder why he manages to keep his youthful looks or when he falls in love with a girl who will grow old faster than him. The plot isn't desperately sophisticated, but it serves the premise well and shows that youthfulness isn't everything.

Kangazang: Small Cosmos by Terry Cooper
The final book in the Kangazang trilogy, I am pleased to recommend this sharp and funny sci-fi comedy with some interesting concepts and themes. A great finale to the series.

Dirty Glory by Pete Grieg
I can't remember much from this book, but it was certainly an encouragement and exhortation to pray more, so I'd better get on and do that.

Work
Freelancing continues to be its familiar experience of peaks and troughs since I have no real control over the work that comes across my desk. The year started off busy with trips to North Wales for a big NHS project and various conferences. In the summer I had my usual big animation annual report project to do, which was surprisingly a lot less stressful than previous years. Weirdly, October and November were completely dead and I was beginning to seriously worry about where things were going but I then had several bookings for both December and January so that was a relief. As well as North Wales, I've traveled to Birmingham and Newtown for filming events. Birmingham is probably the furthest I've had to travel for work in a while (apart from Majorca in 2016). I enjoy these occasional trips as it breaks up the monotony of things at home, but it's usually stressful arranging childcare or navigating to a venue I've never been to before. I am painfully aware of the need to find alternate income streams to help balance out my workload and cashflow – so I'm going to try and focus on this in 2019.

I've also continued to be part of the Purple Hat Productions collective, which started off well shooting a music video in January and then a horror trailer in March. We released our comedy 'Hey Mal' in April which we'd shot the previous autumn. There was a bit of a quiet spell for the rest of the year until we had a flurry of activity filming a Brexit satire, a short for the My Rode Reel competition in October and then another short made in Penarth in November. It feels like we didn't do that much this year, but looking at that list we were pretty busy (considering this is a side-project). Hopefully we will be able to maintain momentum next year.

Health
Overall, my health has been good. I suffered from extreme back pain over the summer after our time in France – which took a couple of months to put right. I realised that my exercises were putting a lot of strain on my back and was making it difficult for me to get better. So in response, I'm doing a lot less exercises at the moment which is not ideal. I think I need to find something new to do that is both energetic and kind to my spine (no mean feat). Wifey joined Slimming World this year, which has been surprisingly effective (it's not a diet, it's more about healthy eating) and I am trying to follow it as best I can as well. One result is that I have become an expert at making low fat chips!

World Events
Sigh. Even though I was trying to be upbeat and optimistic last year, with all that's been going on at home, in America and the rest of the world I can't help but feel despair at the way the world is heading right now.

We are facing a global environmental catastrophe with only years to fix, and no-one seems to care. Britain is facing one of the biggest political crises in recent history and no-one seems to think it should be averted. The three largest economies in the world are being led by dictatorial megalomaniacs and a lot of people seem to think this is fine.

If we manage to get through to the end of 2019 unscathed (or even alive) I will be amazed, as it will be nothing short of a miracle.

Other stuff
Sadly our stick insects died this year, as did our hamster. No great loss there as I was a bit fed up of all the cleaning required. There has been talk of getting a kitten, but I'm very wary of this given the responsibilities involved, vet bills etc. It may be, however, that the cute factor will win us over eventually ...

I've also taken up British Sign Language through our church life group. This has been a fun but challenging experience. Learning a language is no mean feat in itself, but BSL is trickier because it's harder to practice on your own ... plus there are lots of regional variations which makes it difficult to know what the 'correct' sign for something is. Saying that, it's been great to be able to communicate better with the deaf couple in church and I think they really appreciate that.

As with most years, 2018 has been a mixed bag. Mercifully no great tragedies, but not tremedous occasions of joy and celebration either.

I'm just thankful to have survived another year!