Blogs

Vegganuary - Trialling plant-based meat alternatives

One of my new year resolutions was to attempt Vegganuary (not vegan...dairy is too much of my diet, and I really don't like the plant-based alternatives)...and I managed it* (there were a couple of known exceptions...on 1st January I was marshalling a cyclocross event, and was not going to be picky about what I ate whilst standing in a field in wet, cold conditions...and on 26th January we had a birthday trip at

Switch 2

It's reasonable to say that I use my Switch a lot...mostly for "casual" rogue-like games, as my Year in Review kindly points out. I'm say about 90% of my gaming is currently done on it, mostly in handheld mode, in quick, short sessions (rarely more than 15-20 minutes at a time). it's rare these days that I sit down for a prolonged gaming session.

2025 Hopes

2024 was really fucking hard. Naomi's nocturnal sleep cycle absolutely fucks with the extended family as a whole. Kate's ex-other-partner "A" was a twat and the understandable fallout from that went on for months. Glad that's over. Kate's got other partners now and is much happier. I'm happy with my extra comet relationship with Beki, I imagine that will de-escalte naturally over time but we're cool where that's at.

That said, I'm still trying to live a life outside the 7-11 days.

7-11 day

A typical day for me (for posterity):

2025 Manifesto

Cycling

As well as keeping up the general fitness, I want to have some targetted events. I'm not sure I'll properly race again (though I am keeping my race license for now), but might be convinced if the fitness is there and the course is right.

Targetted Events

The Blood Machine Hungers ... and other life changes

So the other day I had my yearly opticians appointment and as part of that they blinded me with a machine that supposedly images the back of your eyeball. The photos they took, very tasteful subdued and flattering, of the back of my eyeballs showed a bit of bleeding. So I had to go to an ophthalmologist to check it. They took more pictures after blinding me this time with eye drops and confirmed there was something there.

So I was then required to go down stairs and get one of my arms drained of blood for "testing" purposes.

Cycling Adventures

I'm a bit unfit. Not massively but there are some days where I just don't leave the house! I need an activity that's fun in of itself and isn't running because fuck that. What I did like about running is that doing couch to 5K gave me something of a challenge or a game to play. I'm on Strava and that's great for nerding out on maps, stats and so on but it's not really a game. I'm having to overlay my own shit onto it and that's what you have here.