2006 Redux

It's been a funny old year on the whole.

It's the first time that one of my parents has faced a serious illness, with major operations, hospital stays and a change of lifestyle. Fortunately all seems to be very positive and a good recovery is on the cards.

Work has been strange - the takeover meant lots of pressure, lots of change and not very much more money. Hmmm. I wonder if 2007 will mean that I should start looking for another job elsewhere? I'm happy with the current arrangements that mean that I can spend a fair amount of time working at home, but maybe there are other things I could do that would allow me the same freedoms?

My best memory of the year was our holiday in Cyprus - a completely new experience in many ways. My first time somewhere quite so hot, my first time that far round the world, my first time in a country where I spoke no more than a few words of the language. I don't know if I'd fancy flying quite that far again though - this year's holiday will probably be to Argate (at the end of 'ar garden!).

The book of the year for me was the Dark Tower series by Stephen King - I think it is his most important work, and it ranks as a work of fantasy on a par with Lord of the Rings in my opinion. The non fiction category was a close tie between the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - one neatly removes the need for a supernatural entity to create the world, and the other reminds us just how strange, complex and beautiful that world is.

On the games front, Animal Crossing was the game I spent most time on, although Gun and Godfather were the console games of choice. Gun was short but very sweet, and just edged it over Godfather in the end.

The tv highlight was undoubtedly Heroes - a dark and radical take on superheroes in the real world, and about as far from the spandex of the comics as it is possible to get. What a cliff hanger to end the mid season on though! The disappointments were Lost, in which I steadily 'lost' interest (ho ho - I am satirical), and Torchwood which had a lot of early promise and then blew it all with a string of badly written episodes with no coherence or recognizable character development.

Fencing was fun, and this year has pushed me to the very limits of my physical ability. The Tortuga event was the highlight though - staying in a genuine castle, dressing up as a pirate and running around playing games for most of the night was simply ACEBEST.

Roll on 2007!