It is that time of the year when the world is full of reviews, and this will be the second or third year I have done it.

2013 has been a year full of ups and downs, revelations and surprises and finally a coming together and a settling down. Some of things that have stood out are:

Building a new bit of house

So, it used to look like this, and it was pretty grim…

So some men turned up after committing to spend vast sums of money and it started to look like this.

Timing is everything, spring was meant to be warm, but the day the builders did this, we then endured the coldest March for 50 years…

Well, I say men, but from time to time we did have helpers…

 

After what seemed like an age, it started to come together, and I did a lot of the non-construction jobs myself, such as general labouring, the plumbing, and laying the underfloor heating…

And laying a sedum roof…

 

 

and the floor – finest bamboo…

and then… it was almost done, so we filled it with friends for a celebratory breakfast!

 

Coeliacs

No photos of this one, you will be glad. I do have one of my small intestines and fascinating as it is, this is probably not the place to post it!

I have fully adjusted to what turned out to be the answer to around 18 months to two years of feeling shit. Let the good times roll.

Greenbelt 2013

I had a lot of fun at Greenbelt, and while we ended up heading home a day early due to sickness, we did manage to perplex people by using informal street art as “an act of worship”

TEDxExeter

In 2012 I was the production manager. In 2013 I assisted in this, but way more stressful was being given a 3 minute slot to talk…

so I spoke, on how to be a revolutionary – how to save the world in three minutes

Running

And, it seems that no blog post now is complete without a reference to running. I am close to closing the year with 1000 miles run, and I am very please with that. I ran my first half marathon, with more plans to run more events.

2014

Well, this is going to be a big year. Big expectations, big targets, a big birthday…

A 24-hour run challenge, please sponsor me. I am in the early stages of a training plan that should take me to 100 mile fitness, so perhaps this is a target. I do need to figure out nutrition, clothing, footwear, and a support crew.

And I think my running target for 2014 will be 2014 miles. This is around 50 miles a week, with enough flex to take a couple of weeks off here and there.

Oh, and I need to finish the extension, build a patio, paint things, look after my family…

I think 2014 is going to be awesome, and I look forward to documenting it.