So we’ll all be bellowing out Auld Lang Syne before too much longer and hugging and kissing drunken people we don’t know from Adam. Well, I certainly won’t. But a lot of people will. Jools will be having his nasally Hootenanny and there’ll be about a billion quid’s worth of fireworks blasted into the air all over the country and everyone will feel a rosy glow inside and be full of hope for a better year to come…

I’m sorry to be Mr Cynical, here, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim given the current state of the World in which we live.

But 2026 is not quite yet upon us and so I’d like to have just a very quick look back at what its predecessor gave us, personally speaking as it were.

Well, personally speaking, 2025 was a bit of a twat in a great many ways.

On 2^nd of January my mum passed away. Wow! That’s just about the worst start to a new year as it gets. Mind you, January has had it in for us for a few years now with my gorgeous wife having a heart attack in 2023 and breast cancer in 2024 in that most heinous of months. I don’t know what we’ve done to piss January off so much but it’s getting tiresome now and we’d like him to leave us alone this time.

My health hasn’t been great either.

I’ve had two colonoscopies this year. TWO! And that’s really one too many. Seriously, there’s nothing more embarrassing than having someone shove a camera up your nether region and having a good look around in there. I will just clarify that all the hospital staff were wonderful on both occasions but it’s still not something that I would hasten to have done again. They did, however, sort out the terrible stomach pains I’d been having for over a year by removing a number of polyps from my colon and so I am actually grateful for the skill of all those involved. Thank you Eccleshill and Airedale hospitals.

Actually, I did watch it all on screen as it happened and it’s a funny sensation looking at your own insides. And honestly, the worst part was the laxatives the day before.

I had some kind of nerve damage in my left arm in the earlier part of the year which was agonising and reduced me to tears at times. Again though, thanks to a highly knowledgeable NHS physiotherapist called Dan, it is back to normal and I no longer feel like my arm is constantly under attack from a colony of pissed-off fire ants.

In the spring of 2025, I was diagnosed with having cervical spondylosis. I hadn’t heard of it before but it’s a quite literal pain in the neck and getting progressively worse. They say there’s no treatment for it and that I’ll just have to adjust to it. All those years of headbanging catching up with me I fear. I struggle to get comfortable in bed with it and when I tilt my head backwards I can feel and hear a somewhat sickening grinding of my neck bones. Chances are I’ll end up in one of those tall collars that make the wearer look like some kind of mega vicar. Bugger!

Then there’s the fibromyalgia, which, in a word, is ‘dreadful.’ But you knew that anyway from the amount of times I prattle on about it. Let’s just say that it’s been a total bastard and my trusty little TENS machine has had an increasingly busy year.

Two brilliant things though, medically, is that Ange has her Type 2 Diabetes well under control and the cancer seems to have had its ass kicked into touch. I’m so happy for her. There were times in the last couple of years that I actually feared the worst that I might lose her but she is doing very well on both of those fronts. She still has to take a fair bit of medication, including a rather nasty one for her bones, which she must take standing up, but she remains an inspiration to me. Always.

There have been some very nice things about 2025 though.

We had a short break in Whitby (our favourite coastal town) in February thanks to the exquisite kindness of our neighbours Josie and Glyn, who couldn’t go themselves due to Glyn injuring his back. And so they blessed us with it instead and we had a smashing time of it. You don’t forget people who do that for you.

We had a virtually free holiday to Ireland (one of my happy places) in September. Ange has the most generous cousins over there you could possibly imagine. Not only did they provide us with free holiday accommodation but they also put us on their car insurance and lent us their own car to drive down to West Cork. We had a supremely relaxing time and came home with longing in our hearts to return soon.

We also had a weekend away in Blackpool a few weeks ago, which left a lot to be desired but we did see the starling murmuration at the North Pier. Something neither of us will ever forget.

Also, let me never forget the immense kindness shown to me by my amazing sister-in-law, Sandra, and her lads, Stephen and Paul. They gifted me the very computer I’m writing this on. It’s a marvellous machine in so many ways but not only did they give it to me but they delivered it themselves and then went all the way to Bradford to get replacement cables for the ones that were missing.

There is no way on this Earth that I could ever afford to buy such a computer as that so to be given it in an act of totally unselfish kindness pretty much blew me away. But then, that’s Sandra and her family for you. They’d give you the milk out of their tea if you needed it. I do feel blessed to be part of that wider family and to have them as in-laws. Plus, take into account that Sandra herself has had two awful bereavements and battled cancer herself in the last 3 years and you begin to understand just what an amazing woman she is.

The big issue of the year, of course, was my Mum’s passing. It affected us all terribly and even now I am struggling with it. She was 92 and it shouldn’t have happened. One insensitive and selfish little sod we know brushed her death off with a shoulder shrug and an, “Ah well!” when we told him how old she was, as if, at 92, she had no reason to be living anyway. I haven’t spoken to him since and I don’t feel inclined to do so at any point in either the near or distant future.

You see, they were on the verge of sending Mum home from hospital after she’d had an operation for a fall but then along came some sleazy little chest infection on Christmas Day and within a week she was gone. That’s not fair and it certainly isn’t a reason for a flippant, “Ah well!” I struggle when people say things to me like, “She had a good innings.” It’s the death of my Mum, not a bloody cricket match.

Mum’s passing has rather overshadowed the whole year but I have tried to be as productive as possible, despite all the health issues. I have written the first draft of my next novel, which, as enjoyable as it was, also proved to be a longer slog than I’d anticipated. The front cover, as I have mentioned before, is fantastic though.

Then of course there’s Substack. I’ve tried to post at least twice weekly and although that hasn’t always been the case I have produced some extremely well-written and funny content that I hope you all enjoyed. The only real issue I have with Substack is that by the time I’ve written two to three posts a week I have little or no energy left for this here Blessham Hall Blog, which has seen something of a decline in frequency. I’m determined to improve on that next year.

My weight has been ridiculous and has yo-yoed like a… …yo-yo. At one point I had lost over a stone and then I came damn close to putting it all back on again. Now I’m around the half stone total loss for the year, so some progress. I did follow the NHS Weight Loss app for a while but didn’t find it particularly user friendly.

I also attended a 12-week course entitled Healthy You, which was run by North Yorkshire Council and was free to join. I learned a lot about nutrition and better eating but when it came to the 25-minute aerobic exercise part of it I had no choice but to go and sit in the café and sip a consolation latte while the ladies went through their paces. I was the only man on the course and I let the side down. I just couldn’t do it; my body simply wouldn’t allow me to.

At the end of the day though, the rest of my family is generally happy and healthy and we see Becky and Erin as often as we can. Erin is doing remarkably well in a tattooist apprenticeship; she’ll go far will that girl. And Becky opened her own coffee shop on the boat over the Summer which rapidly attracted regular customers and did very well. She certainly has an entrepreneurial spirit.

So is it Good Year or Good Riddance for 2025? Hard to say really. I think it’s a 50/50 split. Losing my Mum has been a huge challenge to deal with but I’m surrounded by great family and friends who have all helped me in some way. My wife, who I simply could not live without, has been a tower of strength through it all and my appreciation of her has increased many-fold.

Bring on 2026 then, and we’ll all face it together. The rest of the world is going to hell in a hand basket all around us as man’s inhumanity towards its fellow man continues to spiral out of control. We need to focus on one another and those we love the most. And don’t forget, it’ll soon be Spring again and things won’t seem quite so grim when the sun shines and the daffodils are in bloom.

See you all on the other side of midnight xxx