Year in Review 2025
Dec. 19th, 2025 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teylaminhWell, another year without updating, which in itself tells you everything.
I haven’t even updated Twitter really since about July, I made a Bluesky account but haven’t used it because there’s no way of making a locked account, so I can’t use it to complain about work, and I’m not using Threads because they want my real name. I should really just stop using Twitter because it’s a bin-fire of fascism lately, but it’s also a bit like a very interesting car crash or, IDK, lab experiment that you just can’t tear your eyes away from.
It has very definitely been A Year (when it is ever not?) which I will attempt to summarise in my usual rambly end-of-year fashion.
1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?
Well, we finally bit the bullet and started the journey of becoming homeowners, though more through necessity than choice.
Last year, our landlady had the house valued for will purposes. We had a bit of a stress about it but she assured us (at that point) she had no intention of selling and would give us plenty of notice.
Cut to May 2025, when she announced that she was now intending to sell it but would give us first refusal as promised. At that point there was very little we could actually do until we knew the value – we had a vague idea in mind of how much we could possibly afford with the deposit we had at that point (around £8500), and this was a day before we were hosting a EuroVision party so luckily we had other things to distract us.
It took about a week before she came back with the price from the last valuation which was… massively outside of our budget. It then transpired that she was going away and so we were we (at separate times) so effectively any decision making was on hold until after our respective holidays.
After we got back we attempted to get an agreement in principle (AIP) from one particular lender, namely Skipton, who were offering 100% mortgages specifically for renters but repayments would not be more than your current rent – our rent is comparatively low compared to current market rates so I was not particularly hopeful. Skipton refused us outright, which I suspect now is due to the combination of the property price and our current rent.
Essentially, at that point we had three options:
NGL, option 3 did not sound appealing given the state of private renting currently and the ongoing joy of landlord roulette when it comes to having the audacity of owning a pet.
After the Skipton rejection we decided we needed some expert help, and it turns out my line manager’s cousin is a mortgage advisor so she put us in touch and quite honestly I think she is actually a wizard. Long story short, she got us an AIP from NatWest just after we got back off holiday.
After some initial number crunching we figured out we could not afford to buy our landlady’s property as the repayments would be double our rent. And whilst we probably could have scraped an additional £800 a month together, we would not actually have any quality of life as a result.
Additionally, the bedroom window has needed replacing for some time now due to water ingress – we can’t figure out where the leak actually is, every time it gets sealed the water finds a new way in – resulting in the seal around the window deteriorating and mould on the wall. The landlady did send out a window company to look at it, and their rep reckoned the windows hadn’t been replaced since about the 80s so it was overdue in any case. Unfortunately it will probably also mean the entire wall being rebuilt, and thus a very expensive job, so to date it hasn’t been resolved. I kind of do not want to be the one responsible when the window inevitably caves in, and I didn’t think we would get away with having a survey done and then requesting a lower price as a result of the outstanding window repair (whereas new buyers probably would).
So, Option 2 it was!
When we finally had a better idea of our plan and informed my mum, she and David gifted us an additional £2k for the deposit which also massively increased our options (though latterly declaring that as a gift felt like being interrogated by MI5).
There was then a bit of a delay in actually moving to the next stage of finding a property, but we found somewhere and put in an offer in September and the sellers accepted. We have agreed a completion date and should be moving in January.
Even agreeing the completion date was a nightmare because we had agreed with the landlady to vacate by end of January. As soon as we told her we could not afford the property she changed from wanting to sell ASAP to deferring it to the spring, and she extended our tenancy for another 12 months in July which gave us a bit of breathing room. Such being the case I figured end of January was probably better as it would not leave her in a bad position before selling.
The sellers’ solicitor then suggested 5th December, even though we were very clear with our advisor, our conveyancer AND the sellers that we could not move until January. Also, the date of 5th December was proposed on two weeks’ notice, and in no universe can anyone give two weeks’ notice on a rented property, so it wasn’t happening either way. I honestly suspect it was more about their solicitor trying to clear his desk before the festive shut down. We countered back with 5th January and the sellers then put in a further counter offer of 9th January, which is entirely reasonable, so fingers crossed we will be moving shortly after Christmas.
We had our Level 2 survey back in early December, which was done on 21st November, and given how much stuff the sellers still had everywhere I no idea how they were intending to move out in December. I mean, we haven’t even started yet, but I massively downsized last time and we have far less stuff than the sellers (which is saying something!).
I’m pretty sure we are moving around 12th January, fingers crossed the completion date doesn’t change in the meantime.
That was a very long answer to the first question but is an effective summary of why I haven’t managed to update this year, because the latter half of it has been taken up with stressing about housing. I thought renting was bad enough, turns out property buying is a minefield of unknowable and expensive things.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
Well, we didn’t manage to do anything in terms of sorting things out in the house, which is probably just as well considering…
I am hoping with the house move early next year it will give me a fresh lease of life, because I will not be living with a background of temporary housing anxiety.
TBF, our landlady has been more than reasonable about this whole thing, but I will be very glad not to be renting any more. The idea of home ownership has it’s own related anxieties but at least we don’t have to worry about potentially losing our home on someone else’s whims every 12 months.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Paul’s dad (Brian) died in June. We found out on the day we were due to fly back from Prague (see below) that he had died in hospital, and nobody even knew he had been in hospital because his brother Kieron (Paul’s uncle) is pretty much a chronic alcoholic who is very evidently having another mental health crisis. Thankfully his other brother Eamonn is more sensible and took on the majority of the arrangements.
Sorting out the insurance turned out to be a drama but we got there in the end, not helped by Kieron being paranoid and trying to steal shit from Brian’s flat (they lived in the same block). The insurance barely even covered the funeral and we think the will is probably non-existent – Kieron alleged he knew where it was, but it was like pulling teeth getting him to actually give anyone a sensible answer.
The concierge at the semi-supported social housing where Brian lived then claimed he owed £2000 in missed rent. Eamonn asked for the evidence in writing and then the issue mysteriously went quiet. Brian mostly certainly did not owe any rent because if he had, we would have known about it, and he was apparently always very careful with making sure things were paid.
I suspect the concierge probably does this to the family of every resident who passes and has enough of a success rate to make it worthwhile. Without any firm evidence of that, however, we cannot report him to the social housing agency for fraud. Karma will get him eventually, I’m sure.
Also – I’m not sure if this counts as close – we found out recently that Rich, the front of house co-proprietor of our favourite restaurant, lost his battle against cancer. We saw him a few months ago when he had been receiving chemo and he spent a good 15 minutes offloading at us about how shit everything about it was, so I guess he did consider us friends inasmuch as all of his regulars were considered as friends/family (as is the Polish way). His partner Rob is evidently devastated and the restaurant will be closing, as it would not have been the same without Rich. Just really shit news all round TBH; the couple and the restaurant were well loved in the local community.
5. What countries did you visit?
Czech Republic, Prague, for our 20th anniversary trip. This was delayed from 2020 when we were due to go as part of a choir ‘tour’, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid.
We spent far too much money there but managed to cram a lot into a short trip, including a long-awaited trip to the ossuary in Kutna Hora (the “bone church” that I’ve been wanting to visit for I don’t even know how long.)
We were so knackered by day three that we retired to the Air B&B early and watched Netflix instead.
Anyway, the weather was good, the food was amazing and it was a brilliant trip, which was probably just as well as it was five years in the making.
We didn’t go to Bulgaria this year as we were in the throes of house-buying and were also still skint after Prague, so it will probably be June 2026 instead. Which might mean things are actually open as when we go in September most of the country is in off-season mode.
6. What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?
Less chaos both at home and at work!
Work has been through so many changes in the past year and we seem to be constantly in a state of instability and recruitment. By early next year hopefully all the recruitment will be done, and things will calm down a bit.
Essentially my line manager has taken on various additional services following the ‘realignments’ after some of the Asst. Directors resigned in the wake of the well-documented Council financial crisis in 2024. I now have oversight for both IRO (the team I moved to under the restructure) and UASC. Initially this was just for payments but I’ve taken on the main business support arm as well because it just made sense for me to do it. We have a new part-time Gr3 who is overseeing Care Leavers and have just recruited a new Gr2 to the UASC and Care Leavers team, as the current Gr2 (Amanda) has moved up a grade to a different team. We also need to replace Ellie, who left for Solihull in the summer, and Mehak who has just gone on maternity leave.
My equivalent in the NRPF team, Karen, is also moving up a grade and changing teams so is in the process of training her (temporary) replacement from the Peripatetic team, which means I also need to have background oversight of her service while things settle to make sure stuff happens when it should – though TBH I think Karen does overly worry about letting go, and I’m sure it will all be fine.
So yeah, for a while now things have felt very up in the air and it’s been hard to put any process oversight / changes in place as Amanda is very protective of her way of doing things, so now she has moved on hopefully we can start to look at things more closely and update stuff.
Apparently my job now comprises updating processes and counselling colleagues when they are having stress meltdowns, pretty sure that wasn’t in my job description :P
7. What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There has been too much this year and everything is blurred together, so I honestly have no idea.
For our actual anniversary in April we did go out for a meal at Six by Nico, which was amazing, so I guess 16th April.
Our house buying journey has had a few milestones, including having our mortgage application offered / agreed, but I can’t remember specific dates any more.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, not going off sick with stress/anxiety over all this housing stuff. My line manager and my team have been absolutely amazing throughout. My manager (and my former manager who usually covers) have been incredibly flexible particularly when I was booking into house viewings and needed last minute leave, and my team have been cheering me on throughout the entire journey.
I’ve met up with former CP colleagues as well on a couple of occasions throughout and they have also been excited for the progress of things; they were also a great team when we all worked together.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Writing has taken a sideline again unfortunately. I had two weeks off in October (spent September covering Amanda’s role for three weeks while she was off, which was the other reason we couldn’t go away in September) around my birthday and managed around 2000 words into both of my GoT WIP’s but otherwise, nada.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I’ve spent the past three days with a bloody horrendous cold but hopefully it will shift before Christmas, and at least it waited until all my choir singing was done for the year.
Paul had a bit of a vision scare after we both went to get eye tests (regular for me and a first one for him – he was given reading glasses, yay old age). He was referred for laser eye surgery due to risk of glaucoma, we got there for the surgery and the hospital said he didn’t need it and probably would not ever need to come back, because they have a more sensitive machine than the opticians and the initial eye clinic and thus elicited a non-concerning result. Just a waste of everyone’s time.
If Specsavers say he needs to go to hospital again next time, I think we just go straight to the Eye Hospital (he was sent to Russells Hall) and save time.
Talking about the joys of old age, I also now have varifocals – it took a while to get used to them but at least I can read my choir music properly now.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I mean, we haven’t actually bought it yet, but does a house count?
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
See above re: my manager(s) and my team – in particular my colleague Jenny who talked me off an anxiety cliff very early into the proceedings when I was spiralling about how things would turn out.
Also my folks, because without their small gift for our ISA we would have been far more limited in our options.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
BSS senior management are the gift that keeps giving, obviously – yet more random policy changes put in place without actually consulting anyone, where we then have to do the work of proving their decisions are idiotic after the event. One process change in particular has undone all my hard work in creating efficiencies in one of our IRO processes, so that’s infuriating.
Also, Farage and all of his dickhead Reform cronies, Trump et al., politics is just exhausting at the moment. The Greens are giving us some hope at least.
I must admit to being grimly amused by all the Reform led councils very quickly crashing and burning (though not amused for their residents, obviously), turns out you can’t just run a council on racism and flags, who would have thought?
Oh yeah, and all the stupid Little England Flagshaggers can do one as well. We actually put in an offer on another house on the same day as the one we are buying (which we took back again as it was non-standard construction, as we learned shortly after), but very nearly didn’t because there were bloody flags everywhere in the local area.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Well, our rent went up again in July but it’s a similar amount to our mortgage payments so on the one hand it’s probably a good thing.
We massively overspent in Prague and I’m still recovering TBH.
Also, turns out buying your first house is massively expensive in general. The conveyancer fees keep going up due to new and interesting bits of ‘admin’ they’ve had to do, and the level 2 survey was a big chunk as well (my mum went halves on it). We need to get home insurance and life insurance to qualify for the mortgage (the latter is with our advisor to find some quotes). We will have more money to spend after we move in as well, as it has no shower (only a bath) and the fusebox is probably going to need replacing as well as apparently it’s very old.
The new place has no central heating (just a gas fire in the lounge and an immersion water heater) but we’ve visited twice, the second time after temperatures had dropped, and it appears to retain heat really well. So if anything our bills will be lower for a while and that should offset some of the other associated costs.
I have probably spent too much money on Ubers to work when I can’t face the bus journey, or when I have go in last minute after lunch - thank goodness it’s only once a week usually.
Fingers crossed within a few months our finances will stabilise when we know what our new bills will look like.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Our offer getting accepted on the house was exciting, but also terrifying!
Also – Paul’s mum managed to source tickets for Inside No. 9: Stage / Fright, which it’s not exaggerating to say are like hen’s teeth, so that was a bit exciting! The show itself was amazeballs, though sadly we did not get to meet Steve and Reece as they left early. Our special guest was Nick Hancock, if we’d gone to the Saturday show it would have been Joe Lycett, but they don’t announce who any of the guests are until they appear so we had no way of knowing.
The Last of Us season 2 was also exciting and I really enjoyed it, but the so-called fandom is actually exhausting.
16. What song will always remind you of 2025?
I think I got one new CD for Christmas so I can’t really think of anything.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? It’s been a year of fluctuating emotions particularly since May when the landlady announced her intentions to sell. I have spent most of the time since then having a perpetual anxiety attack of varying severity. (Yup, still traumatised from the first time.)
(b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter TBH, neither of us have been very good at cooking regularly and we have become far too reliant on takeaways. That should change after we move as there are corner shops literally on the doorstep.
(c) richer or poorer? Definitely poorer, see above re: overspending in Prague and rent going up, plus massive over-reliance on Uber Eats for essentials. Hopefully slightly better off after we move and things have stabilised, and we have five years fixed term on our mortgage so hopefully the interest will go down after those five years (unless whoever is in power by then pulls another Kwarteng/Truss and breaks the economy).
Honestly I am glad we are doing this now on the other side of Truss’s minibudget, if we had done this a few years ago and our mortgage payments suddenly doubled I would have been fuming. At least at this point we know the interest rates are insane and they have potential to go down after our five years fixed term is up.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Pretty much everything, it feels like stuff has been on hold while we sort out our housing. I’ve just about managed to make cards for people but most of my other non-gaming hobbies have been sidelined.
9. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Too much gaming in place of other interests again, because it’s all my brain has been able to cope with at times. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach was my birthday present off Paul and it has been my comfort game, much the same as the first one. (All my Sam/Fragile feels!)
On the plus side I have made the effort to watch more shows rather than spending the evening on the Playstation so that’s something.
20. How will you spend Christmas?
This will be our last Christmas in our current house (another reason I didn’t want to move in December). We will have my uncle over for lunch again as usual, turkey this year and it’s my turn to cook, which means Paul gets to make the first Christmas dinner in our new house next year!
I’m on leave from Christmas Eve until after the new year, and will then probably have another week off shortly after to facilitate the move – again, my line manager has been totally fine and flexible about all of it, for which I am immensely grateful.
On Christmas Eve we will have the usual meal with friends at Las Iguanas, this year paid for by our frankly insane pub quiz winnings because we literally cannot get rid of it. We bought a meal for Mike when he visited Birmingham for his birthday in February (£80 quid down) and currently have over £400 because we keep winning (hashtag humblebrag).
We don’t even win every week but even if we come second we get almost double our money back from entering.
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Quietly as usual, but probably also packing, and getting ingredients for whatever I decide to cook for Paul’s birthday.
22-23. [REDACTED]
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
Taskmaster remains an infinite source of joy.
I’ve tried to watch shows I kept putting off this year, so I binged The Crown on Netflix and have started re-watching King of the Hill on Disney+ which I loved as a teenager.
Last of Us season 2 was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the negative reaction from the majority of the fanbase. IDK when fandom became such a toxic cesspit but it’s not limited to TLOU unfortunately and I suspect it’s more of a reflection on the fact that the internet is mostly awful these days. Give me back the fun internet of the early 00’s please.
There seems to be a widespread epidemic of people having zero media literacy any more, mostly thanks to Netflix binging habits I suspect. Don’t get me wrong, Netflix has made some great stuff but they have a LOT to answer for.
During my fortnight off in October we also belatedly got around to binging season 1 of the new Interview with the Vampire show – currently working through season 2. It’s definitely living up to the hype!
Stranger Things season 5 is imminent also so I will probably re-binge the earlier episodes before starting on it, though I anticipate I will be horrendously spoilered before I even get to it.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
The Labour party are not exactly covering themselves in glory, are they? FFS, we deliberately voted for less Toryism, not more. Bellends.
Appealing to Reform voters will not make them suddenly vote Labour, all it does is turn your non-racist, non-fascist supporters further left and towards parties that actually represent those values i.e. the LibDems and the Greens.
It genuinely infuriates me that Reform and Farage are constantly on the news when they have a grand total of five MP’s who don’t speak for the majority of what I prefer to believe is a decent society. The racists are just shouting louder than everyone else, supported by our toxic mainstream media.
Also, obligatory #ShutUpJoanne.
26. What was the best book you read?
Book fail this year, mostly because we didn’t go away to Bulgaria which is when I do most of my reading.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
No new musical discoveries this year.
28. What did you want and get?
I mean, I guess getting a mortgage was pretty big although I didn’t actively want it at the start of the year…
29. What did you want and not get?
For Trump to actually fuck off and die.
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
I finally got around to watching Wicked and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, both in terms of performances and general prettiness. No spoilers, but the Surprise Appearance of a Certain Two People was a genius move.
During our Netflix evening whilst away in Prague we watched Carry On (the Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman thriller, not to be confused with Kenneth Williams et al.) which was great.
I’m sure there were others throughout the year but none that stood out.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 44. I fluctuated over whether to go out for a meal or not, and toyed with Old Dresser (Rich and Rob’s restaurant per earlier question) before deciding to have Paul cook for me instead. I sort of regret not going there now.
We had met with our mortgage advisor a couple of days before to look at putting in the application so it was laced with anticipation also. We didn’t quite get the application agreed on my birthday but it was close enough.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having all this housing stress to deal with, though at least we will have a fresh start in the new year.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?
Much the same as ever, whatever is comfy for work and pretty dresses / tops if I’m going out.
34. What kept you sane?
Gaming as stress relief, and also card making really helps to focus my brain when I need it to. During the recent completion date stress I had to make a birthday card for a colleague and it really helped me stop catastrophising.
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
Well, Reece Shearsmith had a turn on Taskmaster, so that definitely didn’t help.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Where TF do I start. *gestures at world*
37. Who did you miss?
Nobody this year I think!
38. Who was the best new person you met?
The new part-time Gr3 in the team is lovely and has fit in really well with the dynamic. The team has been in a state of flux for a while but our TL seems to be a really good judge of character when it comes to shortlisting and recruitment – at least compared to my old TL whose team is in a constant state of chaos. I am eternally glad to be out of it.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nobody this year.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025:
Apparently buying houses was a lot easier in the 80s and 90s when the banks were giving away mortgages like sweets. Millennial life is eternally a curse of complexity.
Also, as ever – anxiety is a dirty liar.
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I had a new (actually slightly recent!) Tegan and Sara album for Christmas, so I’ll pick something from that:
(All I Have To Give The World Is Me, from Hey, I’m Just Like You - a reminder to embrace your own weirdness and not try to fit the imaginary mould.)
I haven’t even updated Twitter really since about July, I made a Bluesky account but haven’t used it because there’s no way of making a locked account, so I can’t use it to complain about work, and I’m not using Threads because they want my real name. I should really just stop using Twitter because it’s a bin-fire of fascism lately, but it’s also a bit like a very interesting car crash or, IDK, lab experiment that you just can’t tear your eyes away from.
It has very definitely been A Year (when it is ever not?) which I will attempt to summarise in my usual rambly end-of-year fashion.
1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?
Well, we finally bit the bullet and started the journey of becoming homeowners, though more through necessity than choice.
Last year, our landlady had the house valued for will purposes. We had a bit of a stress about it but she assured us (at that point) she had no intention of selling and would give us plenty of notice.
Cut to May 2025, when she announced that she was now intending to sell it but would give us first refusal as promised. At that point there was very little we could actually do until we knew the value – we had a vague idea in mind of how much we could possibly afford with the deposit we had at that point (around £8500), and this was a day before we were hosting a EuroVision party so luckily we had other things to distract us.
It took about a week before she came back with the price from the last valuation which was… massively outside of our budget. It then transpired that she was going away and so we were we (at separate times) so effectively any decision making was on hold until after our respective holidays.
After we got back we attempted to get an agreement in principle (AIP) from one particular lender, namely Skipton, who were offering 100% mortgages specifically for renters but repayments would not be more than your current rent – our rent is comparatively low compared to current market rates so I was not particularly hopeful. Skipton refused us outright, which I suspect now is due to the combination of the property price and our current rent.
Essentially, at that point we had three options:
- Option 1: best case scenario – find a lender who could give us a mortgage for the current property so we could buy it off the landlady;
- Option 2: find a lender who could give us a mortgage to buy another property;
- Option 3: continue renting somewhere else for a another year or so to clear debt and rack up more of a deposit
NGL, option 3 did not sound appealing given the state of private renting currently and the ongoing joy of landlord roulette when it comes to having the audacity of owning a pet.
After the Skipton rejection we decided we needed some expert help, and it turns out my line manager’s cousin is a mortgage advisor so she put us in touch and quite honestly I think she is actually a wizard. Long story short, she got us an AIP from NatWest just after we got back off holiday.
After some initial number crunching we figured out we could not afford to buy our landlady’s property as the repayments would be double our rent. And whilst we probably could have scraped an additional £800 a month together, we would not actually have any quality of life as a result.
Additionally, the bedroom window has needed replacing for some time now due to water ingress – we can’t figure out where the leak actually is, every time it gets sealed the water finds a new way in – resulting in the seal around the window deteriorating and mould on the wall. The landlady did send out a window company to look at it, and their rep reckoned the windows hadn’t been replaced since about the 80s so it was overdue in any case. Unfortunately it will probably also mean the entire wall being rebuilt, and thus a very expensive job, so to date it hasn’t been resolved. I kind of do not want to be the one responsible when the window inevitably caves in, and I didn’t think we would get away with having a survey done and then requesting a lower price as a result of the outstanding window repair (whereas new buyers probably would).
So, Option 2 it was!
When we finally had a better idea of our plan and informed my mum, she and David gifted us an additional £2k for the deposit which also massively increased our options (though latterly declaring that as a gift felt like being interrogated by MI5).
There was then a bit of a delay in actually moving to the next stage of finding a property, but we found somewhere and put in an offer in September and the sellers accepted. We have agreed a completion date and should be moving in January.
Even agreeing the completion date was a nightmare because we had agreed with the landlady to vacate by end of January. As soon as we told her we could not afford the property she changed from wanting to sell ASAP to deferring it to the spring, and she extended our tenancy for another 12 months in July which gave us a bit of breathing room. Such being the case I figured end of January was probably better as it would not leave her in a bad position before selling.
The sellers’ solicitor then suggested 5th December, even though we were very clear with our advisor, our conveyancer AND the sellers that we could not move until January. Also, the date of 5th December was proposed on two weeks’ notice, and in no universe can anyone give two weeks’ notice on a rented property, so it wasn’t happening either way. I honestly suspect it was more about their solicitor trying to clear his desk before the festive shut down. We countered back with 5th January and the sellers then put in a further counter offer of 9th January, which is entirely reasonable, so fingers crossed we will be moving shortly after Christmas.
We had our Level 2 survey back in early December, which was done on 21st November, and given how much stuff the sellers still had everywhere I no idea how they were intending to move out in December. I mean, we haven’t even started yet, but I massively downsized last time and we have far less stuff than the sellers (which is saying something!).
I’m pretty sure we are moving around 12th January, fingers crossed the completion date doesn’t change in the meantime.
That was a very long answer to the first question but is an effective summary of why I haven’t managed to update this year, because the latter half of it has been taken up with stressing about housing. I thought renting was bad enough, turns out property buying is a minefield of unknowable and expensive things.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
Well, we didn’t manage to do anything in terms of sorting things out in the house, which is probably just as well considering…
I am hoping with the house move early next year it will give me a fresh lease of life, because I will not be living with a background of temporary housing anxiety.
TBF, our landlady has been more than reasonable about this whole thing, but I will be very glad not to be renting any more. The idea of home ownership has it’s own related anxieties but at least we don’t have to worry about potentially losing our home on someone else’s whims every 12 months.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Paul’s dad (Brian) died in June. We found out on the day we were due to fly back from Prague (see below) that he had died in hospital, and nobody even knew he had been in hospital because his brother Kieron (Paul’s uncle) is pretty much a chronic alcoholic who is very evidently having another mental health crisis. Thankfully his other brother Eamonn is more sensible and took on the majority of the arrangements.
Sorting out the insurance turned out to be a drama but we got there in the end, not helped by Kieron being paranoid and trying to steal shit from Brian’s flat (they lived in the same block). The insurance barely even covered the funeral and we think the will is probably non-existent – Kieron alleged he knew where it was, but it was like pulling teeth getting him to actually give anyone a sensible answer.
The concierge at the semi-supported social housing where Brian lived then claimed he owed £2000 in missed rent. Eamonn asked for the evidence in writing and then the issue mysteriously went quiet. Brian mostly certainly did not owe any rent because if he had, we would have known about it, and he was apparently always very careful with making sure things were paid.
I suspect the concierge probably does this to the family of every resident who passes and has enough of a success rate to make it worthwhile. Without any firm evidence of that, however, we cannot report him to the social housing agency for fraud. Karma will get him eventually, I’m sure.
Also – I’m not sure if this counts as close – we found out recently that Rich, the front of house co-proprietor of our favourite restaurant, lost his battle against cancer. We saw him a few months ago when he had been receiving chemo and he spent a good 15 minutes offloading at us about how shit everything about it was, so I guess he did consider us friends inasmuch as all of his regulars were considered as friends/family (as is the Polish way). His partner Rob is evidently devastated and the restaurant will be closing, as it would not have been the same without Rich. Just really shit news all round TBH; the couple and the restaurant were well loved in the local community.
5. What countries did you visit?
Czech Republic, Prague, for our 20th anniversary trip. This was delayed from 2020 when we were due to go as part of a choir ‘tour’, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid.
We spent far too much money there but managed to cram a lot into a short trip, including a long-awaited trip to the ossuary in Kutna Hora (the “bone church” that I’ve been wanting to visit for I don’t even know how long.)
We were so knackered by day three that we retired to the Air B&B early and watched Netflix instead.
Anyway, the weather was good, the food was amazing and it was a brilliant trip, which was probably just as well as it was five years in the making.
We didn’t go to Bulgaria this year as we were in the throes of house-buying and were also still skint after Prague, so it will probably be June 2026 instead. Which might mean things are actually open as when we go in September most of the country is in off-season mode.
6. What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?
Less chaos both at home and at work!
Work has been through so many changes in the past year and we seem to be constantly in a state of instability and recruitment. By early next year hopefully all the recruitment will be done, and things will calm down a bit.
Essentially my line manager has taken on various additional services following the ‘realignments’ after some of the Asst. Directors resigned in the wake of the well-documented Council financial crisis in 2024. I now have oversight for both IRO (the team I moved to under the restructure) and UASC. Initially this was just for payments but I’ve taken on the main business support arm as well because it just made sense for me to do it. We have a new part-time Gr3 who is overseeing Care Leavers and have just recruited a new Gr2 to the UASC and Care Leavers team, as the current Gr2 (Amanda) has moved up a grade to a different team. We also need to replace Ellie, who left for Solihull in the summer, and Mehak who has just gone on maternity leave.
My equivalent in the NRPF team, Karen, is also moving up a grade and changing teams so is in the process of training her (temporary) replacement from the Peripatetic team, which means I also need to have background oversight of her service while things settle to make sure stuff happens when it should – though TBH I think Karen does overly worry about letting go, and I’m sure it will all be fine.
So yeah, for a while now things have felt very up in the air and it’s been hard to put any process oversight / changes in place as Amanda is very protective of her way of doing things, so now she has moved on hopefully we can start to look at things more closely and update stuff.
Apparently my job now comprises updating processes and counselling colleagues when they are having stress meltdowns, pretty sure that wasn’t in my job description :P
7. What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There has been too much this year and everything is blurred together, so I honestly have no idea.
For our actual anniversary in April we did go out for a meal at Six by Nico, which was amazing, so I guess 16th April.
Our house buying journey has had a few milestones, including having our mortgage application offered / agreed, but I can’t remember specific dates any more.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, not going off sick with stress/anxiety over all this housing stuff. My line manager and my team have been absolutely amazing throughout. My manager (and my former manager who usually covers) have been incredibly flexible particularly when I was booking into house viewings and needed last minute leave, and my team have been cheering me on throughout the entire journey.
I’ve met up with former CP colleagues as well on a couple of occasions throughout and they have also been excited for the progress of things; they were also a great team when we all worked together.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Writing has taken a sideline again unfortunately. I had two weeks off in October (spent September covering Amanda’s role for three weeks while she was off, which was the other reason we couldn’t go away in September) around my birthday and managed around 2000 words into both of my GoT WIP’s but otherwise, nada.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I’ve spent the past three days with a bloody horrendous cold but hopefully it will shift before Christmas, and at least it waited until all my choir singing was done for the year.
Paul had a bit of a vision scare after we both went to get eye tests (regular for me and a first one for him – he was given reading glasses, yay old age). He was referred for laser eye surgery due to risk of glaucoma, we got there for the surgery and the hospital said he didn’t need it and probably would not ever need to come back, because they have a more sensitive machine than the opticians and the initial eye clinic and thus elicited a non-concerning result. Just a waste of everyone’s time.
If Specsavers say he needs to go to hospital again next time, I think we just go straight to the Eye Hospital (he was sent to Russells Hall) and save time.
Talking about the joys of old age, I also now have varifocals – it took a while to get used to them but at least I can read my choir music properly now.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I mean, we haven’t actually bought it yet, but does a house count?
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
See above re: my manager(s) and my team – in particular my colleague Jenny who talked me off an anxiety cliff very early into the proceedings when I was spiralling about how things would turn out.
Also my folks, because without their small gift for our ISA we would have been far more limited in our options.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
BSS senior management are the gift that keeps giving, obviously – yet more random policy changes put in place without actually consulting anyone, where we then have to do the work of proving their decisions are idiotic after the event. One process change in particular has undone all my hard work in creating efficiencies in one of our IRO processes, so that’s infuriating.
Also, Farage and all of his dickhead Reform cronies, Trump et al., politics is just exhausting at the moment. The Greens are giving us some hope at least.
I must admit to being grimly amused by all the Reform led councils very quickly crashing and burning (though not amused for their residents, obviously), turns out you can’t just run a council on racism and flags, who would have thought?
Oh yeah, and all the stupid Little England Flagshaggers can do one as well. We actually put in an offer on another house on the same day as the one we are buying (which we took back again as it was non-standard construction, as we learned shortly after), but very nearly didn’t because there were bloody flags everywhere in the local area.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Well, our rent went up again in July but it’s a similar amount to our mortgage payments so on the one hand it’s probably a good thing.
We massively overspent in Prague and I’m still recovering TBH.
Also, turns out buying your first house is massively expensive in general. The conveyancer fees keep going up due to new and interesting bits of ‘admin’ they’ve had to do, and the level 2 survey was a big chunk as well (my mum went halves on it). We need to get home insurance and life insurance to qualify for the mortgage (the latter is with our advisor to find some quotes). We will have more money to spend after we move in as well, as it has no shower (only a bath) and the fusebox is probably going to need replacing as well as apparently it’s very old.
The new place has no central heating (just a gas fire in the lounge and an immersion water heater) but we’ve visited twice, the second time after temperatures had dropped, and it appears to retain heat really well. So if anything our bills will be lower for a while and that should offset some of the other associated costs.
I have probably spent too much money on Ubers to work when I can’t face the bus journey, or when I have go in last minute after lunch - thank goodness it’s only once a week usually.
Fingers crossed within a few months our finances will stabilise when we know what our new bills will look like.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Our offer getting accepted on the house was exciting, but also terrifying!
Also – Paul’s mum managed to source tickets for Inside No. 9: Stage / Fright, which it’s not exaggerating to say are like hen’s teeth, so that was a bit exciting! The show itself was amazeballs, though sadly we did not get to meet Steve and Reece as they left early. Our special guest was Nick Hancock, if we’d gone to the Saturday show it would have been Joe Lycett, but they don’t announce who any of the guests are until they appear so we had no way of knowing.
The Last of Us season 2 was also exciting and I really enjoyed it, but the so-called fandom is actually exhausting.
16. What song will always remind you of 2025?
I think I got one new CD for Christmas so I can’t really think of anything.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? It’s been a year of fluctuating emotions particularly since May when the landlady announced her intentions to sell. I have spent most of the time since then having a perpetual anxiety attack of varying severity. (Yup, still traumatised from the first time.)
(b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter TBH, neither of us have been very good at cooking regularly and we have become far too reliant on takeaways. That should change after we move as there are corner shops literally on the doorstep.
(c) richer or poorer? Definitely poorer, see above re: overspending in Prague and rent going up, plus massive over-reliance on Uber Eats for essentials. Hopefully slightly better off after we move and things have stabilised, and we have five years fixed term on our mortgage so hopefully the interest will go down after those five years (unless whoever is in power by then pulls another Kwarteng/Truss and breaks the economy).
Honestly I am glad we are doing this now on the other side of Truss’s minibudget, if we had done this a few years ago and our mortgage payments suddenly doubled I would have been fuming. At least at this point we know the interest rates are insane and they have potential to go down after our five years fixed term is up.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Pretty much everything, it feels like stuff has been on hold while we sort out our housing. I’ve just about managed to make cards for people but most of my other non-gaming hobbies have been sidelined.
9. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Too much gaming in place of other interests again, because it’s all my brain has been able to cope with at times. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach was my birthday present off Paul and it has been my comfort game, much the same as the first one. (All my Sam/Fragile feels!)
On the plus side I have made the effort to watch more shows rather than spending the evening on the Playstation so that’s something.
20. How will you spend Christmas?
This will be our last Christmas in our current house (another reason I didn’t want to move in December). We will have my uncle over for lunch again as usual, turkey this year and it’s my turn to cook, which means Paul gets to make the first Christmas dinner in our new house next year!
I’m on leave from Christmas Eve until after the new year, and will then probably have another week off shortly after to facilitate the move – again, my line manager has been totally fine and flexible about all of it, for which I am immensely grateful.
On Christmas Eve we will have the usual meal with friends at Las Iguanas, this year paid for by our frankly insane pub quiz winnings because we literally cannot get rid of it. We bought a meal for Mike when he visited Birmingham for his birthday in February (£80 quid down) and currently have over £400 because we keep winning (hashtag humblebrag).
We don’t even win every week but even if we come second we get almost double our money back from entering.
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Quietly as usual, but probably also packing, and getting ingredients for whatever I decide to cook for Paul’s birthday.
22-23. [REDACTED]
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
Taskmaster remains an infinite source of joy.
I’ve tried to watch shows I kept putting off this year, so I binged The Crown on Netflix and have started re-watching King of the Hill on Disney+ which I loved as a teenager.
Last of Us season 2 was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the negative reaction from the majority of the fanbase. IDK when fandom became such a toxic cesspit but it’s not limited to TLOU unfortunately and I suspect it’s more of a reflection on the fact that the internet is mostly awful these days. Give me back the fun internet of the early 00’s please.
There seems to be a widespread epidemic of people having zero media literacy any more, mostly thanks to Netflix binging habits I suspect. Don’t get me wrong, Netflix has made some great stuff but they have a LOT to answer for.
During my fortnight off in October we also belatedly got around to binging season 1 of the new Interview with the Vampire show – currently working through season 2. It’s definitely living up to the hype!
Stranger Things season 5 is imminent also so I will probably re-binge the earlier episodes before starting on it, though I anticipate I will be horrendously spoilered before I even get to it.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
The Labour party are not exactly covering themselves in glory, are they? FFS, we deliberately voted for less Toryism, not more. Bellends.
Appealing to Reform voters will not make them suddenly vote Labour, all it does is turn your non-racist, non-fascist supporters further left and towards parties that actually represent those values i.e. the LibDems and the Greens.
It genuinely infuriates me that Reform and Farage are constantly on the news when they have a grand total of five MP’s who don’t speak for the majority of what I prefer to believe is a decent society. The racists are just shouting louder than everyone else, supported by our toxic mainstream media.
Also, obligatory #ShutUpJoanne.
26. What was the best book you read?
Book fail this year, mostly because we didn’t go away to Bulgaria which is when I do most of my reading.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
No new musical discoveries this year.
28. What did you want and get?
I mean, I guess getting a mortgage was pretty big although I didn’t actively want it at the start of the year…
29. What did you want and not get?
For Trump to actually fuck off and die.
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
I finally got around to watching Wicked and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, both in terms of performances and general prettiness. No spoilers, but the Surprise Appearance of a Certain Two People was a genius move.
During our Netflix evening whilst away in Prague we watched Carry On (the Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman thriller, not to be confused with Kenneth Williams et al.) which was great.
I’m sure there were others throughout the year but none that stood out.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 44. I fluctuated over whether to go out for a meal or not, and toyed with Old Dresser (Rich and Rob’s restaurant per earlier question) before deciding to have Paul cook for me instead. I sort of regret not going there now.
We had met with our mortgage advisor a couple of days before to look at putting in the application so it was laced with anticipation also. We didn’t quite get the application agreed on my birthday but it was close enough.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not having all this housing stress to deal with, though at least we will have a fresh start in the new year.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?
Much the same as ever, whatever is comfy for work and pretty dresses / tops if I’m going out.
34. What kept you sane?
Gaming as stress relief, and also card making really helps to focus my brain when I need it to. During the recent completion date stress I had to make a birthday card for a colleague and it really helped me stop catastrophising.
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
Well, Reece Shearsmith had a turn on Taskmaster, so that definitely didn’t help.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Where TF do I start. *gestures at world*
37. Who did you miss?
Nobody this year I think!
38. Who was the best new person you met?
The new part-time Gr3 in the team is lovely and has fit in really well with the dynamic. The team has been in a state of flux for a while but our TL seems to be a really good judge of character when it comes to shortlisting and recruitment – at least compared to my old TL whose team is in a constant state of chaos. I am eternally glad to be out of it.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nobody this year.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025:
Apparently buying houses was a lot easier in the 80s and 90s when the banks were giving away mortgages like sweets. Millennial life is eternally a curse of complexity.
Also, as ever – anxiety is a dirty liar.
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I had a new (actually slightly recent!) Tegan and Sara album for Christmas, so I’ll pick something from that:
No one’s very real today
No one’s very real today
All I have to give this world is me and that’s it
Just me, just me, just me and that’s it
Convinced myself not to be so strange
I hope I still take your breath away
(All I Have To Give The World Is Me, from Hey, I’m Just Like You - a reminder to embrace your own weirdness and not try to fit the imaginary mould.)
