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The year in...
...furry friends
We got a dog! She's both the most wonderful and most annoying thing I've ever encountered. It's hard work and she needs a lot of training, but she's come a long way in the time we've had her. 2026 will bring more training sessions, and hopefully more success. As I write this she's befriended the people at the table next to me in the café, and doing her best poor orphan impression in the hopes of a bite of their sausage sandwiches.
...retreating into my cave
I took a step back from social media in the latter half of the year, not for any particular reason, but it just wasn't making me happy. I'm keeping up with people's RSS feeds, but probably missing out on what folks are up to by not checking Bluesky/Mastodon. I still find myself picking up my phone absent-mindedly to look at things, realising I don't want to look at social media, and putting it down again.
I'd hoped that being on social media less would lead to more blog posts, but it didn't; most of the time, the thought of writing a post felt like work, so I chose to just stay offline instead.
...conferences
As predicted I did indeed do fewer conferences this year, and I managed to use the migrations talk for all of them. I think that one's run its course now, so my conference visits in 2026 are much more likely to involve being in the audience!
- State of the Browser was in March this year, and it was great as always. It was great to finally meet Sara Joy!
- I spoke at QCon London in April, which was a new experience for me - it was absolutely massive, five or six tracks, which I found completely overwhelming. There were some great talks and I enjoyed the web track but that size conference just isn't for me. I like the small ones where you can chat to people in the break without it feeling transactional.
- I travelled to Cluj in Romania in May to speak at JSHeroes. Having heard lots of good things about it, I can confirm it's great vibes and the whole crew were wonderful people. I saw conference friends, made some great new ones, and would thoroughly recommend the conference. What an excellent community!
- Speaking of wonderful people, so were the crew of NordicJS in Stockholm in October. It was an absolute pleasure to speak there, the talks were all absolutely fascinating, and the festival vibes reminded me of JSConf EU. I took part in the Code in the Dark challenge at the afterparty, and properly crashed and burned.
- As usual I went back to StaffPlus which is now LDX3, and it was pretty good - merging the conferences into one big three-track event meant that sometimes I couldn't get into the talks I wanted to see, which was a shame. I much prefer single-track conferences. That said, I saw some great talks and came away with a ton of ideas for tackling tech debt and monitoring website/repo health.
- In Nov I went back to FFConf for the first time in a few years, and I remembered why I loved it so much. What an inspiring and thought-provoking conference.
Next year you bet I'll be at the last-ever (sob) All Day Hey in May, and I'm hoping to go back to Amsterdam for CSS Day in June. There's also State of the Browser in March, which I never miss!
...gardening
I took my second sabbatical in May, and spent the time designing my front garden. A few people have asked me about it recently, and I'm pleased to report it's taking shape, but it took a while to get started!
May is actually a terrible time to redesign the garden, as really you want to get plants in the garden in or before spring so the roots can establish. Summer was so dry this year that the few plants I’d put in really weren’t very happy, plus the ground baked solid and I couldn’t dig it until mid-November.
It rained for what seemed like three weeks straight in November, which was a blessing for the garden (and a curse for everyone else!) and meant the ground softened up enough to get the beds dug in. We bought a cubic metre of compost and distributed it across the beds, and I planted the first lot of hardy perennials and shrubs, which will just hang out until they start growing again in spring.
I also bought a bare root pear tree which I’ll plant in the spring when it starts to warm up.
...books
This year I moved on from the “disproportionately disadvantaged female heroine turns out to be omnipotent god” genre, and read some other books I enjoyed more:
- The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler: creepy sentient killer octopuses and secret research by shady tech corporations!
- Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler: I enjoyed the previous book so much I read this one immediately afterwards. The authoritarian president of a Federation that is Definitely Not Russia Wink Wink keeps himself alive by downloading his consciousness into younger bodies, and AI Prime Ministers reign supreme.
- Villains and Virtues series by A.K. Caggiano: a fantasy trilogy following two very likeable characters, one of whom is a demon spawn on a quest to fulfil a dark prophecy. Don't be put off by the cover art, which makes it look like fanfiction: these are really well written.
- Mages of the Wheel series by J.D. Evans: the Sultana of a magical kingdom embarks on a quest to unite mages of all the houses, and end the war with what is effectively the Roman Empire. While they are at their core romance books, there's plenty of gripping story and character development in a way that didn't make it feel like fluff. Each book in the series follows a different character.
- The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson: a great fantasy read about a contest to replace an emperor and a woman who unravels a dark secret at the heart of it.
- Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda: a book of short stories about women in Mexico. Some are quite graphic (mega content warning for the first story which has a very graphic depiction of a terminated pregnancy) and some are just plain depressing, but this was a really really good read.
- Why Q Needs U by Danny Bate: a fantastic linguistic deep-dive into the history of each letter of the English alphabet. A long-time etymology nerd, I really loved this book and can't recommend it enough. Did you know the letter "a" is derived from a pictogram of an ox's head?
- Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and Other Typographical Curiosities by Keith Houston: a fascinating history of some common, and not-so-common, punctuation marks and symbols.
- Butter by Asako Yuzuki: worth reading for the descriptions of food alone. This book was everywhere this year, and for good reason.
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden: nominated for the International Booker Prize, this was a fascinating read set in post-war Netherlands.
- Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie: A more optimistic view on how we can tackle climate change, backed up with actual statistics and science. It's not naĂŻve about the challenges ahead by any means, but it does make it all seem a little less futile.
- Moonbound by Robin Sloan: I really enjoy Robin Sloan's sci-fi writing, and this was characteristically bizarre and great fun. Set in the far future eleven thousand years from now, a young boy escapes an evil wizard and learns more about the strange world around him.
...music
In the latter couple of months I’ve been making more of an effort to listen to actual albums, because I’ve had my favourites playlist on repeat for most of the year and I tend to listen to the same few songs. On repeat this year was the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack, which goes SO HARD and was my most listened to this year by a long way.
Some other great albums this year:
- MAYHEM by Lady Gaga was a stellar return to form and I loved every track
- Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party by Hayley Williams
- Stardew Valley Festival of Seasons - I had the pleasure of going to see this live at the beginning of the year, and it was wonderful. Orchestral versions of the brilliant soundtrack to this brilliant game.
...video games
This year we bought a Switch 2, and I played a ton of Hades 2! I'm actually getting pretty good at it. The soundtrack is great, too.
I also played Hollow Knightfor the first time, and beat the game even though at times I wanted to rage quit and throw the console across the room. I used to avoid soulslikes as I thought they were too hard, but it turns out I needed to approach the boss fights differently from the Borderlands-style games where you just spray-and-pray. It was an exercise in patience, and it ultimately paid off (plus it made Hades seem a lot more attainable). James played the sequel this year and I can safely say that I will not be going near it, having watched him play.
I spent a LOT of time on Blue Prince, which was exactly my brand of mystery/puzzle game.
...blog posts
Considerably fewer than last year, but they still seemed to resonate with folks, especially the one about AI slop!
- I repaired my Steam Deck and it was fine actually: replacing the screen on a console that's designed to be DIYed.
- My month of rest and relaxation: reflections from my first month's sabbatical from work.
- The blog questions challenge: a fun little quiz doing the rounds earlier this year.
- This page is under construction: a love letter to the personal website
- Touching grass, and shrubs, and flowers, and dog: designing my garden, and a new furry companion.
- This website is for humans: a diatribe against AI slop stealing people's work
I also wrote a guest post for Piccalilli about conditional types in TypeScript.
I feel like I have another post in me before the end of the year, but I also have a lot of games to play...
That’s it for now
As the Web Framework of Time pollutes the remainder of the year with the Unnecessary JavaScript of Eternity, it's time to say goodbye for 2025 and I will see you in the new year!