In the spirit of reflection of the year gone past and looking forward to the next year a few brilliant things that happened this year which might inspire you onto doing things yourself.
1. I got back to seeing live music this year better than I had the year before. We saw Ed Sheeran at Wembley (totally and utterly incredible) You should buy the DVD and watch it, that was the night we were there. His performance of Afire Love where he sings alone with no guitar and Elton John plays the piano will cut you like a knife, especially if you understand where the song is coming from.
We saw Mumford and Sons at Nottingham Arena and one of my all time heroes Frank Turner at Rock City in Nottingham. When I say ‘we’ above I mean me and Alison.
I reconnected with my great friends Ferg and Ross to see The Diagrams instead of going to a boring Fellows Dinner at the ITI AGM. That truly was an exceptional evening.
I recommend all of that music if you are looking for an album to buy that you haven’t got with a voucher you got for Christmas.
- The blog has been amazing this year. The connections have been utterly amazing, emails from people, comments at lectures and shows and it has just been an amazing thing to make friends and have chats. I recommend that you write one yourself. If you do send me the link and I will subscribe to it and read it every day and I promise I will respond.
- I took my daughter to see 1984 at Nottingham Playhouse. I lost my way with that a little bit but plan to more next year. Periodically I have returned back and forwards there and although Alison is not a massive fan, Grace who will be 14 in February is a developing fan. We plan to get the tram to Nottingham and watch more.
- Cinema. I let myself down in a big way here because one of my great friends Stuart Reekie and I had a great thing going where we would go to the cinema once a month and we took it in turns to choose the film and the other wouldn’t know what we were watching. This fell apart in March due to busyness and other commitments and never picked up again until we saw James Bond in November (brilliant movie, you have to see that). It will start again in January and I won’t let Stuart down this year.
- New music. I let myself here again (two big failures in a row). I was generally listening to a new album every month but just haven’t got round to it. Need to re-apply myself to this next year.
- The commitment to the Outlaw Triathlon leading to the race itself on 26th July. One of the most personal life affirming events I have ever had and one to be repeated hopefully later on in 2016. More discussion about that later. Totally recommend that you sign up for something you have never done this year, the sense of achievement is outstanding and dramatic as it was for all of us who shared the experiences of doing that this year.
- Lastly a few goodbyes. I said goodbye to the Karen Green Foundation and handed over the reigns of Chairmanship of the charity I helped found several years ago. There just wasn’t enough time to do the job properly and to give it what is deserved. Good luck to all those guys and I hope it carries on as a brilliant thing.
The same thing happened with Governors at the Primary School more recently. I decided my time had come to an end with that after eight years. The school is moving on to a new era with new people and it will be outstanding in a very short period of time. It came off the back of dropping out of ITI Leadership towards the end of last year and the last dregs of that stuff finishing off.
I am no longer involved in Refine Specialist Dental Care in Alfreton at all after Angela Leivers relieved me of my share in the business. She forges forward with that to make it into a bigger and better thing.
Not a bad year at all and some of the highlights are things you might want to do yourself.
Blog Post Number: 811
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