Journal tags: year

Here’s the new year, same as the old year. Well, not the same, but pretty similar.

At the end of 2024, I wrote:

It was a year dominated by Ukraine and Gaza. Utterly horrific and unnecessary death courtesy of Putin and Netanyahu

See what I mean?

2025 added an extra dose of American carnage with Trump’s psychotic combination of cruelty and incompetence directed at the very foundations of the country. I’ve got to be honest, I’m tired of the USA living rent-free in my head so I’ve issued an eviction notice. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy and empathy for what’s happening there, but a majority of the country voted for this …again. Like a dog voting to have its nose rubbed in its own shit. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.

Anyway, leaving world events aside (yes, please!), I also said this at the end of last year:

For me personally, 2024 was just fine. I was relatively healthy all year. The people I love were relatively healthy too. I don’t take that for granted.

Again, same. No major health issues in 2025. My loved ones are well. My gratitude grows.

I’ve already written about how much music I played in 2025. I’m hoping to continue that trajectory in 2026 with lots of sessions. We’re four days into the year and I’ve already had two excellent sessions. There are another three lined up this week.

One of the highlights of 2025 was my trip with Jessica to Donegal. Learning Irish by day, playing in sessions by night, all while surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I’ve already got a return trip planned for 2026. I’m also planning to be back in Belfast for the annual tradfest.

Other 2025 highlights include:

• Curating an excellent edition of UX London.
• Releasing the new Salter Cane album and playing those songs live—I want to do more of that in 2026.

Most of my travel in 2025 was either for music or family.

I made three trips to the States to see the in-laws: California, Florida, and most recently, Arizona. I can’t say I feel very comfortable going to the States right now, especially to Florida, where people openly display their intolerance on their T-shirts, and Arizona where they openly display their guns.

I went back to my hometown of Cobh a few times during the year to visit my mother.

Aside from those family trips, I went to Belfast, Donegal, Galway, and Clare in Ireland, Cáceres in Spain, Namur in Belgium, and Amsterdam. Only that last one was work-related. I always make sure to get to CSS Day.

Meanwhile here on my website, I posted 695 times in 2025. That includes 345 notes, 262 links, and 86 blog posts. Here are some I’m quite fond of:

• The web on mobile
• Portugeating
• Style your underlines
• Hounds Of Love
• Research
• Bóthar
• Why use React?
• Tunes and typefaces

All in all, 2025 was a grand year for me. It wasn’t all that different from the year before. I’m at an age where the years aren’t all that differentiated from one another. I’m okay with that because I’m also at an age where I know what brings me joy and satisfaction, and I can focus on those things.

So here’s to 2026, which I hope I will spend doing more of what I did in 2025: playing music, speaking Irish, eating good food, hanging out with friends, reading good books, travelling to interesting places, and staying relatively healthy.

I have a feeling that 2025 is going to be a year of reflection for me. It’s such a nice round number, 25. One quarter of a century.

That’s also how long myself and Jessica have been married. Our wedding anniversary was last week.

Top tip: if you get married in year ending with 00, you’ll always know how long ago it was. Just lop off the first 2000 years and there’s the number.

As well as being the year we got married (at a small ceremony in an army chapel in Arizona), 2000 was also the year we moved from Freiburg to Brighton. I never thought we’d still be here 25 years later.

2005 was twenty years ago. A lot of important events happened that year. I went to South by Southwest for the first time and met people who became lifelong friends (including some dear friends no longer with us).

I gave my first conference talk. We had the first ever web conference in the UK. And myself, Rich, and Andy founded Clearleft. You can expect plenty of reminiscence and reflection on the Clearleft blog over the course of this year.

2010 was fifteen years ago. That’s when Jessica and I moved into our current home. For the first time, we were paying off a mortgage instead of paying a landlord. But I can’t bring myself to consider us “homeowners” at that time. For me, we didn’t really become homeowners until we paid that mortgage off ten years later.

2015 was ten years ago. It was relatively uneventful in the best possible way.

2020 was five years ago. It was also yesterday. The Situation was surreal, scary and weird. But the people I love came through it intact, for which I’m very grateful.

Apart from all these anniversaries, I’m not anticipating any big milestones in 2025. I hope it will be an unremarkable year.

There goes 2024.

It was a year dominated by Ukraine and Gaza. Utterly horrific and unnecessary death courtesy of Putin and Netanyahu.

For me personally, 2024 was just fine. I was relatively healthy all year. The people I love were relatively healthy too. I don’t take that for granted.

Looking back on what I did and didn’t do during the year, here’s something interesting: I didn’t give a single conference talk. I spoke at a few events but as the host: Patterns Day, CSS Day, and UX London. That’s something I really enjoy and I think I’m pretty darn good at it too.

I was wondering why it was that I didn’t give a talk in 2024. Then Rachel said something:

I really miss An Event Apart.

That’s when I realised that An Event Apart would usually be the impetus behind preparing a conference talk. I’d lock myself away and spend ages crafting a presentation to match the calibre of that event. Then, once I had the talk prepared, I could give modified versions of it at other conferences.

With An Event Apart gone, I guess I just let the talk prep slide. Maybe that’ll continue into 2025 …although I’m kind of itching to give a talk on HTML web components.

In most years, speaking at conferences is what allows me to travel to interesting places. But even without being on the conference circuit I still travelled to lovely places in 2024. Turin, Belfast, Amsterdam, Freiburg, west Cork, Boston, Pittsburgh, Saint Augustine, Seville, Cáceres, Strasbourg, and Galway.

A lot of the travel was motivated by long-standing friendships. Exploring west Cork with Dan and Sue. Celebrating in Freiburg with Schorsch and Birgit. Visting Ethan and Liz in Boston. And playing music in Pittsburgh with Brad.

Frostapolooza was a high note:

I felt frickin’ great after being part of an incredible event filled with joy and love and some of the best music I’ve ever heard.

Being on sabattical for all of August was nice. It also meant that I had lots of annual leave to use up by the end of the year, so I ended up taking all of December off too. I enjoyed that.

I played a lot of music in 2024. I played in a couple of sessions for pretty much every week of the year. That’s got to be good for my mandolin playing. I even started bringing the tenor banjo out on occasion.

I ate lots of good food in 2024. Some of it was even food I made. I’ve been doing more and more cooking. I’ve still got a fairly limited range of dishes, but I’m enjoying the process of expanding my culinary repertoire a bit.

I read good books in 2024.

All in all, that’s a pretty nice way to spend a year: some travel, seeing some old friends, playing lots of music, reading books, and eating good food.

I hope for more of the same in 2025.

Here’s one photo from each month in 2024